


ashes to ashes

by unscriptedemily



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Dark Fantasy, Distrust, Fluff, Getting Together, Living Together, M/M, Magic-Users, Rating May Change, Warnings May Change, Weird Plot Shit, fun fun fun, i made up a few words, lots of magical jargon, the character death warning is NOT for ed or roy dont worry lads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-07-23 16:32:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 50,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7470984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unscriptedemily/pseuds/unscriptedemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I haven’t seen you around here before,” says the man. <i>Fuck off</i>, thinks Ed, <i>I bet you say that to all the strange, heavily armed sorcerers that come wandering past your doorway in the middle of the night</i>.</p><p>--------</p><p>Or, Ed is a travelling mage with a mysterious past, and Roy is the sorcerer that falls in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

> !!!!!!!!!!!! here it is! as promised! chapter 1 of this whole new multichap thing which i am doing !!! mage au. my favourite ;V;  
>  wow it's 1am so i hope you enjoy the first part, and chapter 2 will be up either tomorrow or the day after, depending on how much sleep i get !!! thank u <333
> 
> EDIT: thank you to everyone who notified me of my (many, terrible) mistakes !!! i've fixed...most of them ??? i think ?? if you spot any more, thought, please don't hesitate to let me know !!!!

 

 

Exhaustion creeps over him like a fog. When the wind forces its way through the layers of his cloak, jacket and shirt, he barely has the energy to shiver. The chill air disturbs the cloak where it hangs around his knees, tugging it back from where he folded it around himself.

Fuck, it’s cold.

Ed had thought that the citizens of Central City would be a whole lot more amiable to mysterious travelling strangers with knapsacks full of herbs and amulets and faded scrolls, but it’s been three hours since he got through the heavy iron gate at the entrance to the city, and he’s no closer to finding a place to stay for the night. Calves burning- he’s been walking for _weeks_ on end and it began taking its toll fucking days ago. It’s honestly a damn miracle that he’s made it this far- he casts another heating charm over himself.

He really, really needs to get around to sewing temperature regulating symbols into his cloak; he meant to do it  _ months  _ ago. Granted, months ago he’d still been in the east, and the weather had been fucking amazing back there. Too bad their knowledge of complex and obscure magical processes had been a contrasting  _ complete shit _ ; he would’ve liked to stay there a while longer.

“Well,” he mutters out loud, breath misting the night air, “I guess I’m paying the price for being a  _ fucking idiot _ and procrastinating the fuck out of my temperature spells.”

Cobblestones shift underfoot as he makes his way through the winding streets. On either side of him the lights are off in the faceless buildings- with the shutters drawn in the windows he can’t tell the difference between the normal houses and the stores. The only thing he can tell apart are the inns and pubs with their swinging signs jutting out above the street, but he left those behind what feels like hours ago. Ed supposes he can’t really blame the innkeepers for turning him away- his weaponry alone set him apart from nice, normal citizens, but that’s sort of the  _ point _ .

Ed suspects that his reputation has preceded him. He’d heard some whispers when he’d left the last few taverns; stories were beginning to circulate about the strange, powerful mage travelling from village to town to city, never staying long, searching for something.

_ -Searching for what? _

_ No one knows. Something dark. Dark magic. Stay away from the likes of him. _

_ \- His kind is nothing but trouble. _

It’s the same hushed conversation he’s heard a thousand times, and it doesn’t  _ hurt  _ him or anything. It just makes him angry. Especially this late at night, soaked to the bone despite his wards and repelling charms, cold and hungry and worn down from weeks on the fucking road- this whole journey, every dead end, every failure, has lead here. This is his last fucking chance to  _ find out _ -

Well. Maybe not his  _ last  _ chance. There are still villages he hasn’t tried, further towards the desert; he’s been to the Xerxes ruins to study the first ancient carvings, the very beginning of what has evolved to become the magic he uses every day. He’s spoken to masters of the magical arts in Xing; healers and herbalists and sorcerers. Blood magicians. Necromancers.

The people who stare at him with wide, afraid eyes as he passes, the ones who whisper about  _ dark magic  _ and avoid his gaze. They have no idea. None.

The point is, he’s come hundreds of fucking miles, he’s travelled for  _ months  _ , he’s bled and fought and come close to dying too many times to count- and he’s trying to tell himself that if he doesn’t find it  _ here _ , then it’ll be fine. There are other places to look. Not many. But they’re out there… they have to be.

He rubs his eyes with a gloved hand. The metal arm, the mismatched gloves- one full, the other fingerless- the red-lined cloak. All part of the stories. Shit, he’s becoming something of a minor fucking  _ celebrity _ . Jesus. He never meant for this to happen; he never  _ meant  _ to start saving people and getting sidetracked away from his search by various evil magicians each trying to do bad things- he never  _ meant  _ for any of this shit to happen.

He never meant for Al…

Don’t think about that. Don’t think about him. Just keep fucking walking, deep breaths in and out, don’t use up all your energy doing heating charms, save some just in case some fucker jumps you and you have to fight.

Just keep walking.

Rain-slicked roofs and intricately decorated marble eaves stretch up overhead, blocking out the light of the waning moon; even cold, starving and struggling to ignore his aching feet, Ed takes a moment to study the elegant curves and lines etched into the stone, to pick out the runes and hidden symbols. Protection spells. Wards against dark magic. Glamour-revealing charms. Whoever drew them did a poor job of protecting them from the elements; in places the lines are worn and faded. He wrinkles his nose. Fucking hell, this city  _ really  _ isn’t shaping up to all it’s rumoured to be.

A gust of wind sweeps through the dimly lit street and the single streetlamp gutters, spitting sparks against the glass ball; Ed’s hood falls back and he sighs, hefting his bag higher on his shoulder and starting forward again. The candle in the lamp gives off a faintly silver glow amidst the mundane flame colour- it’s enchanted, and very  _ well _ enchanted at that.

It’s not as if he has anything else to do tonight. Every inn has closed its doors after one look at him- they’ll still be willing to shun him in the morning. So he steps forwards until he’s directly beneath the wrought-iron lamp, squinting up at the candle itself. The flame shivers in the air, but doesn’t go out. Ed would bet all his research that it couldn’t be snuffed out if he tried. And then, just to prove himself right, he tries.

Raising a hand he mutters an incantation- purely out of habit; he doesn’t really need the spell but sometimes it helps with concentration- and flexes his fingers slowly, wrapping the flame in an insulating layer of heavy air. With a flick of his wrist he draws all the oxygen away from the flame at once; for a second it snaps wildly, as though buffeted by a strong wind- the flame shrinks to the size of a foxglove-sprite and then, just as Ed is starting to doubt the craftsmanship of the spellworker who put it there, it lengthens out again, swaying benignly in its glass casing. It glows as bright as ever even without the oxygen to feed it.

Good, clean magic. Ed smiles slowly, releasing his hold on the spell and sending the air rushing back in. This city may be full of stingy, distrustful innkeepers and shoddy architecture, but at least  _ someone  _ knows what they’re doing.

A brass plaque at the base of the glass ball containing the enchanted candle reads  _ Hawkeye Flame Sorcery _ , and then the initials of the worker in charge of the spell:  _ R.M  _ in ridiculous cursive. Ed snorts. Fucking greedy-ass corporations turning everything into business to capitalize off  _ thousands of years _ ’ worth of scholars and magicians spending their  _ lives  _ researching and perfecting their respective arts-

Fucking exploitative business owners. Fucking consumer-based economy systems. Ed is so tired.

He gives the streetlamp- once a thing of beauty and delight and exquisitely simple-yet-complex magical programming; now reduced to a commodity mass-produced by underpaid factory workers from a bunch of identical fucking spells stamped into the base of each candle with all the dull efficiency of a government-run warehouse- one last scowl, and continues down the street.

If he’s not going to find a room tonight, he at least wants a sheltered doorway or someone’s deserted storehouse.

His breath is a fleeting white cloud before him as he trudges past a store with a sign proclaiming  _ get swords/knives/daggers/axes sharpened here!  _ Half a suit of armour slumps dejectedly in the display window, and with a pang, Ed thinks about Al, back home with Winry…

Hah. Home. That’s a laugh.

A cat prowls along a low wall to his left, turning to give him an unimpressed stare, luminescent eyes flashing before it jumps off the wall and into the front garden of what looks like an herbalist’s store.

 

It’s one of the very few buildings Ed’s seen so far that actually  _ have  _ front gardens- maybe…hm. Interesting thought. He focuses his eyes and- yeah, there it is; a silver sheen lies over the garden, tendrils of energy reaching out from the soil to the ground below. The garden is enchanted, crafted with magic to clear away the stony ground and carve out a place of beauty and life in the centre of a grey city. It’s- kind of beautiful, actually. The amount of care that has gone into making and preserving this small slice of nature is incredible. Ed blinks, and the light vanishes, streaks of silver shimmering in the corners of his eyes for a few moments until his vision clears.

 Ed peers at the shadowed doorway, the  _ closed  _ sign visible in the front window, the trailing vines and flowers bursting over the wall from the garden, and thinks about his knapsacks dwindling supplies. He makes a mental note to come back here in the morning to stock up on…well, everything. Is he out of deadly nightshade? Probably. He’s too damn tired to check and besides, there’s not much he can do about it right now. He isn’t quite at the point of breaking into unassuming herbalist’s shops to steal their goods. Yet.

Fuck, this is going to be a long night.                                                  

The herbs and flowers in the shop window give off the same silvery glow that the candle flame did, the mark of something inherently magical or enchanted; even in the dark Ed can see the dark green leaves unfurling to soak up what meagre moonlight struggles down into the narrow street; the silver traces of magic grow stronger as the plantlife drinks in the energy. He can’t help but crack a smile- everything may be full of  _ shit _ and he may be stuck outside in the freezing cold with nowhere to go, but at least the plants are still lunasynthesising, right? At least magic, the one constant in this entire fucked-up universe, still has his back.

Ed flips up his hood again, tugs his knapsack more firmly on his shoulders, and keeps walking. There’s a promising-looking indent in the street up ahead, a shadowy break in the smooth wall he’s following as the path steepens, angling uphill. The gap he sees could be an alleyway or a house with a large doorstep; it could be another herbalist’s, with a garden out front- in any case, it could be somewhere for him to sleep comfortably (or as comfortable as one mage can get while sleeping on hard cobbles) for what meagre hours are left of the night.

As he makes his way forwards, bones aching, feet  _ killing _ \- these boots may look badass as fuck but they are not ideal for walking several hundred miles through forests and mountains and cities with poor cobblestone care in- he cups his hands in front of him and breathes into them.

 

As the warm air leaves his lips in a cloud he traps it in his palms, wraps layer upon layer of magic around it and keeps it there, warming his cold-bitten skin. Usually this spell would be child’s play, but he’s already  _ this close _ to collapsing in the middle of the street and passing the fuck out, so the energy required makes him sway on the spot before he rights himself, keeps going.

Stupid fucking forest.

He’d had no choice but to get through the whole thing in one day, setting off at dawn and leaving the relative safety of the last town behind him in his journey to the city. Bad things happened to travellers caught in that forest overnight. Even Ed, who is several shades more proficient in magic and martial arts than most wandering sorcerers or mercenaries, didn’t relish the thought of spending the night there.

It would’ve been  _ fine _ if he hadn’t gotten lost halfway fucking through; he knows he has no one to blame for that but himself, but  _ shit _ it was bad timing. As it was he’d barely made it out of the shadowed woodland- trees shrouded in sprites and poison ivy, the path invisible against the choking weeds and glamours meant to lead unwary trespassers into traps- before the sun went down behind the faint snowy peaks of the mountains crowning the horizon.

And even then he couldn’t stop- directly after the forest was the marshland, and that was dangerous enough  _ without  _ being enchanted, too. So he’d trekked on through the night, too, and after a couple of life-threatening situations and a handful of earth-shattering fights against some bounty-hunting magicians who wanted to rob him, kill him, and exchange his head for a whole lot of gold- he hadn’t realised how  _ wanted  _ he was; apparently there were several western warlords that he’d somehow managed to piss off enough that they wouldn’t mind paying a  _ lot  _ of precious metal to see him dead- he’d  _ finally  _ made it to the city gates.

Once inside the city borders, he’d been fully expecting to crash at the first inn he saw and replenish his energy before setting out the next morning to start doing some hunting of his own.

Yeah, that worked out fucking  _ fantastically. _

 

To be perfectly fucking honest, if Ed didn’t trust his sources irrefutably, he would be long gone by now; moving onto the next town and the next after that until he found what he was looking for.

But he does trust his sources, and- and this is the important part- he  _ knows _ , despite the cold and the shitty excuse for a welcoming reception and his general exhaustion, that the city will have what he seeks.

Well. Most of him knows. A different part of himself is still whispering  _ maybe this is a dead end, too; maybe you’re not looking hard enough; maybe you’ve already passed it and it’s long fucking gone in one of those towns way back east that you’ve left behind. _

Ed tries his best to ignore that part of himself. It never has anything constructive to say.

 

Pulling off his glove and running his prosthetic fingertips over the stone walls on his right and watching the sparks fizz and flare bright silver in response to the enchanted metal, he can admit- albeit grudgingly- that Central City has that intrinsic air of ages-old magic about it; a certain energy deeply ingrained into the worn cobbled streets and the casual, familiar way lamps hang enchanted on street corners glowing with the light of eternal flames, the way spellwork is etched into the architecture and the coppery, flowery scent of magecraft has settled over the city like a cloud of perfume.

Ed knows a lot about magic. He and Al, they started studying,  _ really  _ studying, when they were eight and seven respectively, and now, eleven years later, the two of them are probably some of the best in the world.

Or at least, Ed is. Al- Al  _ is,  _ or he  _ was, _ but- fuck, no, Al  _ is.  _ Present tense.

Ed holds onto his conviction that  _ Al will be alright, Al will wake up and Al will be the same as he was when he does _ in the same way he’s seen starving families cling to their last scraps of food, the same way fear-stalked refugees clutch their weapons to their chests as they straggle on through bandit-ridden lands.

 

Anyway. Glove back on, deep breaths, eyes forward, keep walking et-fucking-cetera.

 

The point is, Ed knows a lot about magic. More than most mages. More than most, full stop.

So when he looks down at the hill he’s just walked up, back down the winding cobbled street to the city he’s trudged through, and sees every building faintly outlined in silver, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

Magic  _ thrives  _ here, that much is obvious to anyone magic-sensitive who’s seen the city from afar, lit up with the glow of energy even from miles and miles away, so bright it’s as though it’s been left to steep in moonlight.

Further than that, though, magic is  _ strong  _ here. In some places, there’s an abundance of energy for mages to tap into, but the strains are weak; when divided from their sources they’re diluted, as though the threads of energy have become diffused apart.

Here, the magic is deep, and strong, and promising. More promising than anything Ed’s found before now.

Strong magic attracts mages- that much is simple. It stands to reason, then, that magic like _this…_ Magic like this, Ed is hoping, will attract the best mages, the best scholars, the most knowledgeable, the most _interested_ \- Central City, with all its rich, tumultuous history, will have books and papers and people to consult; there will be records, and myths, and legends, and buildings with secrets pressed into their foundations. It drew Ed in. it has to have drawn others, too.

If he’s going to find a cure anywhere, it’ll be here. It  _ has  _ to be.

When he reaches the gap in the street wall, it is yet another disappointment in a day chock full of long strings of disappointments, one after the other.

It’s not a nice, dry alleyway. It’s not an alleyway at all. It’s a  _ house. _

Ed fights down a snarl of annoyance, then decides, fuck it, no one’s awake to  _ hear  _ me, and lets it out anyway.

“This is so  _ fucking  _ typical,” he growls, glaring daggers at the house- no, wait, the  _ store _ . There’s a fancy, waist-high gate in front of him, and a paved walkway beyond that, which leads to a shopfront: two large glass display windows, one on either side of a dimly lit, heavy-looking door.  The rest of the building stretches high above it; evidently, what they couldn’t fit width-ways, they overcompensated with by stacking floors on top of each other. The buildings on either side are staggered so they’re quite a lot shorter than this one. The whole thing is a deep reddish colour.  Ed looks at it for a long moment, trying hard to decide whether it’s worth facing being banned from the city if he just fucking burns it down.

Speaking of burning things down: oh, sweet fucking irony! The sign on the door is shiny brass and reads,  _ Hawkeye Flame Sorcery _ . Just the same as the company name on that streetlamp that Ed saw what feels like  _ aeons  _ ago.

Stepping closer, Ed recognises the lights on the front as eternal flames, swaying cheerfully in hollows carved on either side of the doorframe. Candles in jars line the pathway up to the front door. The curtains are drawn in the upstairs windows, lights out; evidently, the inhabitants are sleeping just as soundly as Ed wishes he was.

A wave of exhaustion rolls over him, and he reaches out carefully to steady himself against the gate.  Tiny flames flicker into existence along the top of that, too- harmless, cool flames flashing iridescent colours, spelled to flicker into existence at the touch of another magic user. It’s delicate, difficult work executed in such a way as to make it seem effortless, and Ed feels a kind of reluctant respect for whoever enchanted this place, exhibitionism aside.

So it’s beautiful, yeah, but it’s not a sheltered, dry-ish alcove  _ or _ a nice, quiet alleyway in which he can curl up and catch a few fleeting hours of sleep, so apart from the tiny part of him tipping a metaphorical hat to the spell casters, Ed feels overwhelmingly angry and cheated, and so fucking tired that he’s kind of scared that if he doesn’t start moving again soon he’ll just sit down and fall asleep in the middle of the street like this.

Just as he’s gathering the very last shattered remains of his energy and preparing to start walking some more, a light flickers on in the downstairs store window.

Ed pauses in the street against his better judgement, still holding the gate.

A shadow appears in the window, and the shadow then steps into the light and reveals itself to be a man, dressed in a hastily-laced shirt and close-fitting dark pants. He walks to the window, and looks out. Ed freezes. It’s too late to run, or hide, or-  _ anything _ ; he’s been spotted. Fucking great, now he has to explain to some flame sorcerer that he’s not here to steal anything-

The figure vanishes from the window, and a moment later, the front door opens.

Ed lets go of the gate. He wonders if he should get out one of his knives, just in case this guy attacks him of something- but wait, no, that would just make him look like he really  _ was  _ planning on robbing the place-

“I haven’t seen you around here before,” says the man.  _ Fuck off,  _ thinks Ed,  _ I bet you say that to all the strange, heavily armed sorcerers that come wandering past your doorway in the middle of the night.  _ The man is standing a few metres away, barefoot on the paving stones, firelight casting shifting shadows over his frame. His voice is soft, but not shy. Low, without being gravelly. And-  _ musical _ , almost; it’s- nice. It’s a nice voice. Ed is ready to leave, now. “Are you new to the city?”

Completely casual. As if he’s not having this conversation with a stranger in his front yard at god-knows-what-time at night.

“Yeah,” says Ed slowly, eyeing him distrustfully. “I’m just passing through.”

The man raises an eyebrow, and takes a step closer, the candles on the gate throwing his face into clarity, and- oh, holy fuck, he’s hot. No pun intended. Cheekbones, jawline, dark hair rumpled from sleep; Ed is staring and he  _ knows  _ he is, god damn it.

The guy catches his gaze, and smirks.

Ed considers vaulting over the gate to punch him in the throat.

There is a brief pause, in which the wind rushes past and rifles through Ed’s bangs, sweeping his hair out of his eyes then blowing it back in front of his face. He rotates his wrist surreptitiously, calming the churning air currents, and the wind dies around them.

“You’ll have trouble finding an inn this time of night,” remarks the guy, and Ed rolls his eyes forcefully.

“No shit,” he says, and the guy grins at him, flashing pearly white teeth. Jesus. Or not, haha. Oh, fuck, what is he still  _ doing  _ here? He should be leaving, finding a place where he can actually  _ sleep _ ; he’s so fucking tired he’s starting to find the situation funny- any second now he’s gonna start fucking hysterically laughing, and then the guy will think he’s possessed, and then he’ll try to burn him with holy fire or some shit and he’ll die without ever saving Al, and-

“Do you want to come inside?” asks the guy, and Ed’s internal monologue breaks off with a sharp snap, like a bone breaking.

 

***

 

The guy’s house smells like smoke and mint. An interesting combination. Ed walks in cautiously, fully aware that this is a terrible idea and that it’s probably all part of an elaborate plot to kill him and trade his head to one of those western warlords in exchange for mountains of gold, and  _ then  _ he’ll never save Al and everything really  _ will  _ have been for nothing _. _

_ “ _ I’m Roy, by the way,” says the guy, showing him past several doors and into what seems to be the kitchen. “You haven’t introduced yourself, so I’m just going to assume you’re a fugitive on the run from the Royal Guard, or possibly a dark magician gone rogue, running from his tortured past.”

Roy- fucking stupid name, not at all nice sounding, definitely doesn’t make Ed want to repeat it under his breath just to see what it feels like on his tongue- seems remarkably cheerful about this. Actually, he’s… not actually that far from the truth, but of course Ed isn’t going to _ tell  _ him that.

“Edward Elric,” he says instead, and watches the guy’s- Roy’s- eyes widen slightly at the mention of his name. Brimstone and ash, he really  _ is  _ a fucking celebrity. “Ed is better. And like I said, I’m passing through.”

Roy –nods, slowly, and offers him a chair at a low wooden table. He presses a hand to a carving on the doorframe, and lamps flicker into life on the walls. Ed sits, dropping his knapsack at his feet, and examines the similar carvings on the wall next to him. They’re arrays, he can see that much- circles that act as magical instructions for a spell- but he’s never seen anything like them before. Which is… intriguing. To say the least.

“What is this?” he asks, tracing it with his metal fingers. The magic in the metal responds to the magic in the circle even through the material of his glove, coaxing sparks from it like flint striking steel. Roy takes the seat opposite him.

“Flame sorcery,” he says, and Ed narrows his eyes. He can tell  _ that much,  _ he’s not a fucking idiot. He tells Roy so, and the man looks ever-so-slightly taken aback before he draws a calm expression over his face and gives Ed a slow smile.

“Indeed. It’s an array of my own design,” he explains. “The explanation is confidential, I’m afraid. Employees only.”

Wow. Fucking  _ wow-  _ Ed gets it now, how this Roy guy gets away with being so extremely handsome. He makes up for his good looks by being an insufferable  _ bastard. _

“That’s really nice and elitist of you,” Ed grinds out, “Now do you wanna tell me what the fuck I’m doing in here, exactly?”

Roy sends him a cool look, then leans back in his chair and shrugs, a lazy gesture. All the same, there’s something- off, about his whole smug bastard façade. The person Ed saw at the window was sleep-rumpled and – younger, somehow; this Roy is acting. It grates on Ed’s nerves that he can’t seem to work out what this Roy is thinking, can’t quite see past his impervious mask.

 

Oh, well. At least now he’s been rude enough that Roy’s next words are probably going to be something along the lines of  _ I don’t know, how about you get out.  _ Ed prepares himself for another sleepless night. Maybe in the morning he can go to that herbalist’s and use the last of his coins to buy enough to make an energising potion.

Then Roy says, “I thought I made it clear I was offering you a room for the night,” and Ed stops thinking for a brief second.

After a moment, Ed says, “What?”

Roy sighs, and rubs at his eyes, a surprisingly human gesture. “A room,” he says again, “It’s cold out, and you look exhausted. There are a lot of spare rooms here, I’m sure there’s enough space for me to house an entire orphanage and conceivably never even see any of them.”

“That’s because children are fucking sneaky as hell,” Ed says automatically, then bristles. “What do you mean,  _ I look exhausted _ ? Fuck you. I don’t look exhausted, I’m  _ fine _ . I don’t need your fucking  _ charity,  _ you don’t even  _ know  _ me _ - _ ,”

Roy stands up, pushes his chair back, and walks out of the room. Ed breaks off in the middle of a sentence, anger thrumming hard in his chest.

He twists around in his seat to see if Roy’s going to return, but after a while the man’s voice drifts down from somewhere upstairs: “Are you staying or leaving? There’s a room up here you can use, if you change your mind about accepting some well-meaning  _ charity _ from someone who really doesn’t have any obligation to help you and is doing it out of the kindness of his own heart.”

For the second time that night, Ed thinks very seriously about burning down the entire building. Then again, it’s a  _ flame sorcerer’s  _ house, so there are probably several strong wards against that sort of thing. Fine, maybe he’ll just cause a very localised earthquake right here in the kitchen, and stand out front and watch all five floors topple into a heap of rubble and interesting symbolwork.

He eyes the marking on the wall again. It glows faintly silver in the candlelight.

Ed stands up, swings his knapsack back onto his shoulder, and follows Roy up the stairs.

 

***

 

“Edward  _ Elric _ ,” Roy muses, leading Ed down a narrow corridor. Ed brushes his fingers over the hilt of one of the knives sheathed in his belt. “Interesting.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Roy glances at him over his shoulder, eyebrows quirking. “Oh, nothing. I’ve heard a lot of rumours, that’s all. You’re different to what I expected.”

Ed’s eyes narrow further. He drums his metal fingers on the knife, and Roy flashes him the edge of a smirk.

“Different  _ how _ ?” Ed asks through gritted teeth.

“ Oh, I thought you’d be taller, that’s all,” he says airily, and Ed really  _ does  _ draw the knife halfway out of its sheath before Roy stops in front of him, turning to gesture into a doorway.

“Here we are,” he says, “one room for you. You know where the kitchen is, and there’s a washroom at the end of the hall.”

There are more candles in the room Roy has shown him to. They line the walls and windowsills, and all that open flame in such a small space should make the cramped room uncomfortably hot- but, of course, there are symbols carved into the wax that take the heat and transfer it to  _ light,  _ making each candle burn brighter than one of its size should. It’s a complicated piece of magic, transferring energies.

Exhausted though he is, Ed crosses to the wall to examine one of them, turning the candle carefully to see the rest of the symbolwork: markings to stop it from melting, markings to make it smell good, markings to prevent the flame from burning the surrounding wall or- Ed tests this one by waving his fingertips through the fire- anyone who touches it.

“This is good work,” he says, grudgingly appreciative. He lets his knapsack slip from his shoulder to the floor; it lands next to a broken-looking sundial, of all things. The room appears to be  _ full  _ of miscellaneous objects like this, and, in what would be an overwhelming quantity to anyone except Ed, books.

“Thank you,” says Roy, standing in the doorway. Ed makes the mistake of turning to look at him, and immediately regrets it, because leaning on the frame like that with the candlelight playing over his pale skin and reflecting in his dark eyes renders him a fucking work of  _ art _ .

Ed is so fucked. Hopefully literally. Wait, shit, that is  _ not  _ what he meant; that is  _ not  _ on the table, it’s just- not. It’s really, really not.

He should say something; the silence is filling him up and eating him from the inside out. Or maybe that’s just the hunger. “You- this is your symbol-work on the candles?”

Roy nods, moving further into the room. The house is warm, and that warmth is starting to seep into Ed’s bones. He swallows. He’s just very… _tall--_ not that Ed is in _any_ way not-tall­ --, and the laces of his shirt are loose at the top, and his sleeves are rolled up to show his strong forearms decorated in swirling black lines: tattoos. Symbols and runes and ancient flowing scripts.

Almost all magic-users have them, Ed included. The curving lines tends to appear by themselves when a mage starts to show an affinity for magic; Ed still remembers the first day the markings appeared on his skin, curling over the backs of his hands and up his wrists like tree roots.

They move, sometimes, reforming themselves into Ancient Xerxian- the language of the very first sorcerers and that which all spellwork used to be written in- or magical arrays or even just pictures, leaves and flowers and vines arcing over the skin. No one knows, exactly, what they  _ mean _ , or if they serve a specific purpose beyond marking a person as having magical ability.

 

It is absolute bullshit that all of a sudden Ed can’t stop thinking about what the rest of Roy’s markings look like.

“Oh, well, in that case,” he says, to distract himself from the thought of the rest of the dark tattoos swirling under Roy’s shirt, “it’s fucking terrible and you should redo it.”

Roy laughs, shaking his head. “I should’ve known not to expect a compliment,” he says, and Ed finds himself grinning back, showing the sharpness of his smile, just the edge of teeth.

“What are you really doing here?” Roy asks him softly, and any warmth Ed had felt since entering the room evaporates instantly.

“Excuse me?” he says, guarded, already glad he hasn’t divulged himself of his weapons yet.

Roy sees the sudden tension in his muscles, and holds up his hands, placating. “I’m not- I didn’t mean to come across as interrogative. But the rumours and stories surrounding you… I find it hard to believe you’re actually just ‘passing through’. Especially in this city.”

_ Especially in this city.  _ Does he know something? Or does he just feel it too, that heavy air of magic that hangs over Central.

Slowly, Ed nods, the barest raising and lowering of his chin. He doesn’t relax.

“You’re right,” he says, “I’m not just passing through. But what I  _ am  _ doing really isn’t any of your fucking business, is it?”

Roy stands there for a moment, hands still half-raised in mollification, then, equally as slowly, he lowers them with a nod of his own. “Very well,” he says, “that’s fair enough.”

Ed feels slightly breathless, and he doesn’t have the faintest fucking clue why.

Roy gives him one last unreadable look, then turns back towards the door. It takes a greater effort than it should for Ed to tear his eyes away from Roy’s shoulders and the way the loose material of his shirt has gone slightly see-through where the light touches it. In an effort- futile, fucking futile- to distract himself, he leans down to unlace his boots, toeing them off just as Roy pauses in the doorway.

“Sleep well,” he says, his head just barely turned so Ed can see his cheek and his jaw, cupped and framed by the candlelight, and then he ducks out of the room, footsteps disappearing down the corridor in the direction of the stairs.

Ed does his very, very best not to stare after him, and fails miserably.

His head is spinning, partly from sheer unadulterated fatigue, and partly from the events of the last several minutes. He unfastens his cloak and strips to his underwear and shirt, bundling the rest of his clothes on a stool under the windowsill- there are books  _ everywhere _ ; he suspects this room is being used as a kind of storeroom or pseudo-library.

The mattress in the corner is piled with blankets and his bones ache for its warm comfort; he kicks the door shut, waves a hand behind him to lock it, and manages a curse, muffled by a yawn, as he trips over a stack of manuscripts on the floor on his way to the bed. Fucking hell, he doesn’t care, he just wants to  _ sleep. _

It takes all his last remaining strength to drag the blankets over him when he lowers himself onto the mattress- falls onto it, more like. But then he’s just floating on a sea of warmth and sheer bliss, and, with the smell of books stirring up old memories, he sinks into sleep. 

 

 


	2. luminosity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some new characters are introduced, Ed is a pining mess, and Roy is not being very subtle. Good thing- or bad, depending - Ed can't pick up on hints to save his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOOO THE PLOT THICKENS !!!!! next chapter will be up in a couple days ! it is 1:51am & i just finished editing this so please forgive any mistakes :0 hope u enjoy <3

 

At sunrise the next morning there is a timid knocking at the door. The first few dregs of dawn are just beginning to settle at the base of the horizon when it starts, startling Ed out of his sleep as easy as breathing- he groans, throwing a hand over his face to shield his eyes from the light. 

Great reflexes and the ability to awake at the slightest noise is useful when you’re sleeping rough in an alley in a city populated by thieves and murderers, but _here_? No fucking thank you, instincts.

“What the fuck?” he asks blearily of the world at large, clearing his throat. His mouth tastes like death itself, and he should know. He’s been there a couple times.  
He needs a drink. He needs _coffee_. And a fucking toothbrush.

From downstairs, he can hear the door being opened, Roy’s voice filtering up through the house as he greets whoever is knocking on his door at _five in the fucking morning_.

Hellfire. Hellfire and _damnation_. Ed’s awake.

He throws off the covers- the room Roy has given him is sparsely furnished but _covered_ in stacks of books that create an interesting wall-like effect around the mattress- shoved in the corner like an afterthought- that he currently occupies. There are heavily scrawled-upon papers and jam jars full of ink or blood or bunches of engraving tools and quill pens. The general chaos and the smell of parchment is… familiar. Comforting. Ed feels- _safe,_ here, which is just plain fucking _weird_ at this point.  
  
Worst of all, it reminds him of home. Of Hohenheim’s converted loft space, stacked with manuscripts just like these, the scent of magic sharp and fresh and humming across the whole room- the room he and Al spent _years_ holed up in, skipping school and meals and the outside world to decipher their father’s riddles, to wring some semblance of sense out of the nonsensical.

Standing up, he finds his clothes piled messily and precariously on top of a large, ornate hourglass which in turn is perched atop a three-legged stool under the cluttered windowsill. He picks his way through the walls of books and pulls his shirt and pants out from under his crumpled-up cloak, careful not to knock the hourglass over.

He surveys them with a critical eye, figuring that if he uses some cleaning magic- not his speciality; Al was always better at that kind of practical, useful magic, but it’ll do- his clothes will be good for a few more days until he can get out into the city and buy more. Or find somewhere to wash them. As it is, he flicks his wrist over the clothing, charming the dirt and detritus from his weeks of travel out of the material; it rises in a twisting ribbon of- actually, Ed isn’t sure he really wants to know what exactly the composition is. He directs it out of the window and down a drain. Cool.

Then he gets dressed, leaving his cloak sort-of folded on top of the hourglass, and makes his way out of the room.

The stairs are small, and winding, and it is through willpower alone that he manages not to trip and fall in his half-asleep state. Eventually, he makes it to the hallway- some way in front of him is the door, now closed; to the left is the kitchen-slash-bottled-spell-preparing-room, and to the right is the workshop. Voices drift towards him from the kitchen, so he chooses that door and makes a beeline straight for the jar of coffee beans on the counter on the far side when he enters.

Roy is standing by the table handing a steaming mug to a young girl- brown hair in pigtails, awed expression on her face as she gazes around at the stacks of jars lined up on shelves, the bunches of herbs and flowers, the recipes and the complicated sigils labelled on sheets of parchment and tacked up on all remaining wall space.

Roy was talking when Ed came in, but he falters now, eyes following him as he strides past them and starts shaking ground-up coffee into a clay mug.

“Good morning,” says Roy. Even without turning around, Ed can _feel_ him raising his eyebrows.

“Not really,” he says, assessing his mug and deciding, fuck it, and shaking some more coffee into it. He waves a hand behind him. “You can keep talking, y’know. Pretend I’m not here.”

Roy is silent for a long moment, and then appears to come to a decision of his own. There is rustle as he turns back around, and starts talking again, the low murmur of his voice occasionally punctuated by the girl’s piping speech.

There is water in a large jug next to the stove. Ed takes a moment to admire the heating symbols etched delicately into the glasswork, then flicks his fingers absentmindedly, directing a stream of hot water into his mug, yawning.

Steam swirls up around him, coupled with the heady aroma of coffee, and he wraps his fingers around the mug, turning around to lean against the counter, and-

Roy and the girl are staring at him. The girl’s mouth is slightly open, her eyes shining. Roy is looking impressed, but only a tiny bit, and like it hurts him to show it.

“…What?” Ed asks, unnerved.

The girl leaps up from her seat. In the space of time it takes Ed to blink, shocked, she has crossed the room in a flurry of skirts and is grabbing at the bottom of his shirt and _babbling_. Ed almost drops his coffee on her.

“- _so cool_ , the water looked so pretty and I heard it takes a _whole bunch_ of discipline to learn how to do _Precise Spellwork_ , or at least that’s what Mister Roy told me, I wanna be a magic user but everyone says I should wait ‘til I’m older but that’s _stupid,_ will you teach me?”

All of this is in the space of one breath. She is panting slightly when she finishes, a beam fixed on her face as she stares up at Ed, who is frozen against the counter with his coffee held awkwardly out of the way of her beribboned head.

“Uh,” he says, eloquently.

Roy unsticks himself from the floor and crosses the room, prying the girl’s hands off Ed’s shirt and gently moving her to the side. She keeps her eyes fixed on Ed, her gap-toothed grin erring on manic.

“Sorry,” says Roy, glancing up at Ed, “this is Nina. She’s a little excited.”

Ed nods, very slowly. This explanation has done nothing except make him, if possible, more confused. Nina beams at him.

“It’s…cool,” he says, lowering his mug.

Roy ushers the kid back to the table, and glances back at Ed with his eyebrows raised- _again_ , does the man ever _stop_?- as if to say, _are you coming?_

Well, alright, then. Ed follows, sipping his drink, and sinks into a seat at the table. Roy explains to him that Nina is here to pick up a repaired lamp, which had been brought in after the symbolwork was damaged and it had nearly started a house fire. Nina grins along to the story, apparently unfazed by the near miss.

Children are terrifying. Ed resists the urge to shift his chair away from her.

“Mister Roy is teaching me about _fire demons,_ too,” says Nina in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning over the table. Roy coughs.

“No, I’m not,” he says, and pulls a small glass-and-iron-wrought lamp out from the general mess on the long island counter, handing it to Nina. “Maybe I’ll tell you about the fire demons next time. Are you finished with your tea?”

Nina pouts, swapping her mug for the lamp and jumping down from her stool. “You always say that,” she complains. “When are you _actually_ gonna tell me about the fire demons?”

Roy grins at her, and it’s such an unexpected expression that Ed almost falls off his chair. For a second, just a brief second, Roy looks… brighter. Like the smile has lit up his face from the inside, turning his skin translucent, and this is what his real face looks like under everything else.

“Who knows?” he says, winking. Ed feels his face grow hot. Shit.

Nina rolls her eyes at Roy and skips into the hallway, clutching the lamp carefully to her chest. Ed leans back in his chair to watch as Roy hold the front door open for her, telling her to bring the lamp back immediately if it doesn’t seem like it’s working properly.

“It will,” she says confidently, “your lamps are the _best_ , Mister Roy!”

Roy laughs, and she’s gone, skipping down the path, brimming with the bright yellow energy that all children seem to have, even at five thirty in the fucking morning.

The door closes, and Ed hooks one arm over the back of the chair as Roy comes back in. He looks ridiculously well put-together for this early in the morning. Ed yawns.

“D’you always start the day this fucking early, _Mister Roy_?” Ed asks him, and Roy sends him an unimpressed stare that does nothing to make Ed feel bad and everything to make him uncomfortably aware of _just how_ midnight-coloured Roy’s eyes are.

“Yes, actually,” he says, “it gets busy in the afternoons. I have a _lot_ of work to finish. Did I wake you up?” He doesn’t sound apologetic about it. Ed glares at him.

“Yes, asshole, you did,” he says, and drinks the rest of the coffee. Roy smirks at him, moving round the table to sit at the other end. There is a short pause where Ed doesn’t know what the _fuck_ he is supposed to do with his hands, which are resting awkwardly next to his empty mug. Drum on the table? Put them in his lap?  
Fuck, Roy is looking at him. He leans his chin on one hand, and with the other starts tracing runes in the whorls of the wooden tabletop. He makes his way through half the runic alphabet before Roy speaks.

“You know, that water manipulation _was_ quite impressive,” he says. Ed raises his head slowly.

“Are you... complimenting me?” he says suspiciously, and Roy cracks a crooked grin. Fuck, he’s pretty when he does that.

“I suppose so,” Roy allows, and leans forward, exposing a line of perfect collarbone as his collar dips, which is totally fucking unfair. “In all seriousness, Nina was right when she said that sort of thing takes a _lot_ of discipline. How long have you been training?”

“Is this your sneaky way of asking me how old I am?” Ed says, and Roy looks momentarily _embarrassed_ \- or maybe that’s just a trick of the light- before he flips the switch and a cocky smile is playing around his lips.

“Not originally,” he says, “but now I’m curious.”

Ed pushes up from the table, narrowing his eyes. He lifts a hand, and the glowing lines of energy- energy that only he and a very few other very skilled magicians could ever hope to really see-  trailing from his fingertips seize on the clay mug; it floats up and crosses the room, settling down next to the deep stone washing basin near the stove.

“I’m _nineteen_ , for your information,” he says, “and I’ve been doing magic since I was four. Go figure.”

It’s kind of offensive, actually, that Roy has to ask. Ed’s fairly certain that most of the rumours surrounding the mysterious traveller with the kickass magical affinity  name his young age as one of the most interesting things about him. Which he _also_ finds offensive. He knows he’s a fucking magical prodigy, or whatever. It’s not that great.

Roy’s eyebrows are doing that _thing_ again, that unfairly attractive _thing_ where they sort of quirk and he gets this stupid fucking frowny crease in between them, and his eyes sort of- _crinkle_ , which is actually fucking _torturous_. Ed should know. He’s no stranger to torture, and so far Roy’s dark gaze is knocking everything else out of the fucking water.

“ _What_?” Ed asks, and if it comes out more aggressively than intended, then _fuck_ it; Roy’s been causing him great pain since he first _saw_ the man. It’s only equivalent.

“You do it so instinctively,” says Roy, and his tone and the way he tilts his head thoughtfully sets Ed immediately on edge- it’s like he’s being _studied,_ like he doesn’t already _know_ he’s fucking- abnormal, or whatever. “It’s as if you don’t even need to think about it. All the rumours say you don’t need arrays, or spells, but I didn’t think-,”

“Didn’t think _what_?” says Ed, violently, shoulders tensing. _This_ is why he doesn’t stay in other people’s houses; _this_ is why he usually just finds the cheapest run-down shithole of an inn he can and keeps his head down and doesn’t let people _talk_ to him. He’s so fucking sick of being analysed. “That I’d be such a _freak_?” He spits the word, poisonous. Roy actually _flinches_ , but Ed doesn’t care.

“No,” he says, standing, “no, I-,”

Ed shakes his head, already striding out the door. “You’re lucky I haven’t fucking cursed you yet,” he says, gloved hands clenched into tightly balled fists. He knows a good few curses that could fit Roy perfectly, but- “I’m going out. Have fun _repairing lamps_ , asshole.”

Admittedly, he probably could’ve come up with a better parting blow than ‘ _have fun repairing lamps, asshole,’_ but god damn it he’s _tired_ and right now, he’s too fucking angry to care.

He reaches the door and turns the handle purposefully, wrenching it open. A rush of freezing air greets him like a punch to the kidneys; he lets out a strangled gasping sound. His cloak is _still upstairs_. Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ If he turns back now, it will be _humiliating_. Roy is behind him, calling his name. Ed is poised on the threshold. Oh, Jesus fucking _fuck_ , it’s cold as balls out here. His metal arm is already complaining, sending pulses of pain through his muscles. _Fuck_.  
  
“Ed, please wait,” says Roy.

 _Please_. Ed pauses. It has nothing to do with the fact that half of him is desperate for an excuse to stay inside out of the sub-zero temperatures out _there_.

“What,” he says shortly, turning so his back is to the outside air. The material of his long-sleeved black shirt isn’t thick enough for this. This was a terrible decision. Entering this house in the first place was a terrible decision. Everything Ed has ever done since the age of eleven has been- you guessed it- a _terrible decision._

Roy is staring at him, all fresh and awake and ‘I routinely wake up before sunrise _just for kicks_ ’ –looking. It is probably a testimony to how fucking far gone Ed is that he witnesses the whole thing in something akin to slow motion vision; the scene is a few flowers away from being sickeningly romantic, and Ed hates every second that he spends here and yet cannot bring himself to leave.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Roy says to him softly. “If you don’t wish to discuss your magic, I understand. It’s a deeply personal thing; I’m sorry. I should know better than to pry.”

For some reason, Ed’s breath is coming weirdly fast; he swallows. The palms of his hands itch, residual magic building up there and he has to remind himself to calm the fuck down, because only bad things happen when his power gets out of control and- and this revelation comes as something of a surprise, considering how antagonistic Roy has been so far, deliberate or not- he really, really doesn’t want to destroy the shop with a badly-timed display of out-of-control sorcery.

Roy’s right about one thing: a mage’s power _is_ personal. Some are open about it; hell, some are fucking _exhibitionist_ about it. But to most magic-users, it’s not the kind of thing you just up and _ask_ someone about. Energy permeates everything. But any competent mage knows that the energy that lives in a sorcerer, the energy that is manipulated and wielded and transmuted- that energy is unique and specific to each person who uses it. When Ed and Al’s teacher had taught them this she’d been in the middle of sparring with them; but more importantly, she’d _also_ told them it was like eye colour.  
_Everyone’s eyes are a colour_ , she’d said, blocking Al’s roundhouse kick with ease, _people with the same colour eyes, it looks pretty similar, right? But when you look closely, you can see that no two people’s eye colours are ever_ exactly _the same. No matter how similar they seem, they will never, ever be identical. And it’s the same with your aura- the frequency your magic signal gives off._

Ed nods, slowly, aware that he’s been silent for a while now, and it’s probably making the atmosphere awkward. Whatever. Good. He hopes Roy is uncomfortable.

“Fine,” he says, because he needs to say _something_. “Just do me a favour and don’t fucking bring it up again, alright?”

Something like relief flashes across Roy’s face, before he smoothes it away and responds with a sincere nod. “Of course.” His eyes flicker to the open door, and- fuck it, Ed’s back is basically fucking _numb_ and he’s only been standing there for like five minutes. Fuck this country and it’s stupidly harsh winters. He shuts the door.

“So what’s the game plan for today, flame magician?” he asks, not trying to disguise the sarcasm.

Roy doesn’t look offended at all, which Ed doesn’t know if he’s glad about or not. He just heads towards the workshop, calling, “I’ll show you,” over his shoulder.

 

***

 

“What the hell do you mean, _this isn’t your shop_? Are you an imposter or some shit?” Ed sets his book down and raises his eyebrows- fuck, now Roy’s got _him_ doing it, too- incredulously. “I mean, no fuckin’ judgement, man, who am I to lecture you about the sanctity of the law of whatever. So, what’d you do with the actual owner? Kill him and use his bones to make a shapeshifting potion?” he leans forward. “Just straight up kill him, and fuck the shapeshifting? Seems a little too risky for someone like you, if you-,”

Roy tosses his quill pen aside with the air of a man who has just had the last of his patience stolen from him in broad daylight, by a thief who had the audacity to wave the goods jeeringly at him and then laugh in his face.

“Stop,” he says, “just- for the love of magic, _stop_. The shop belongs to the man I am apprenticed to. He’s been severely ill for a few years, now; he left his work to me and his daughter, who drops in sometimes to make sure everything is running smoothly.”

Ed surveys him for a second, notes the line of tension running across his shoulders. From his vantage point on the floor of the workroom, it’s plain to see that Roy hasn’t been sleeping well. There are shadows under his eyes that aren’t just caused by the positioning of the many candles in the room.

“Alright then,” he says, and shrugs, leaning back against the wall. “Cool. So he’s the Hawkeye dude? From ‘Hawkeye’s Flame Whatever?”

“’Hawkeye Flame Sorcery’,” Roy corrects him, with a pained glance in his direction, and bends his head back over his work- some ridiculously overcomplicated diagram that he found in an old journal and is attempting to redesign into something less unwieldy- again. “And yes. Berthold Hawkeye.”

The full name feels vaguely familiar, so Ed assumes he’s fairly famous in his respective circle. Flame sorcery. Interestingly, it’s not a well-known branch of magic; there’s always been magicians trying to master the five basic elements, sure, but everyone who’s tried to develop on flame magic has always ended up failing. Probably a good thing, Ed thinks darkly; no type of magic that deals with something as dangerous as _fire_ is ever going to be used for purely innocent means.

He tries not to think about what that could mean, Roy studying it. Roy being something of an expert in it. Has he ever used it to harm someone? Has he ever wanted to?

“When’d you start your apprenticeship?” Ed asks. A couple of people have stopped by to get things fixed and to pick up things that have already been fixed, but apart from that, Roy’s just been sat here for _hours_ , working on fuck-knows-what. He won’t let Ed see; Ed’s finished all the books in the pile that Roy directed him to, and now he’s bored as hell. Might as well use the time to learn something about the man he’s staying with.

Roy scratches something into the page with his quill. The room is lowly lit in every place except the desk, where there are candles angled specifically so their light falls directly on the work surface, illuminating the paper beneath. Clever thinking.

“Officially, when I was thirteen. But unofficially he mentored me for about a year before that.”

Ed hums thoughtfully, stretching his legs out in front of him. Roy’s hair falls over his eyes, artfully mussed. Even though he knows for a fact that it’s bright daylight outside, the curtains are all drawn in here and the dimness combined with the lighting softens the lines of Roy’s face, making him seem- vulnerable. Or something. Fuck, will his brain ever _shut up_?

“It’s interesting,” he says conversationally, “I’ve never heard much about flame sorcery as a branch of study.”

Roy looks around at him, eyes curiously serious. Calculating. Ed stares right back at him.

“It is interesting,” says Roy quietly. “It’s also not something to be treated lightly.”

Ed props his chin on his hands, leaning forwards. “Seems like it has a lot of potential for being abused,” he agrees. Roy narrows his eyes almost imperceptibly.

“Yes,” he says calmly, “and that’s what I try my best to prevent.”

It’s not easy to tell whether Roy’s lying or not, and that in itself is- unnerving, to say the least. Usually Ed is _good_ at getting a read on people; he’s had to be, what with the whole transient-lifestyle, never-knowing-who-to-trust gig.  
Does it really make a difference to Ed if Roy intends to use this magic to hurt people? Does it _matter_ if he’s planning on, say, joining the king’s army? He’s gotta be in high demand; even in a big city like this, there can’t be too many people who know this type of magic as he does. And the army is always in need of new recruits.

It shouldn’t make a difference, shouldn’t matter. Ed’s used his magic to hurt people. Hell, the fucking army’s tried to recruit _him_ ; several times. He’s run into them while on the road, while getting dragged into unfortunate situations and ending up saving a whole bunch of villagers; whatever. There’ve been knights that have seen him fight and tried to convince him to join their club. They’ve never, ever succeeded, and they never _will_ \- but they’ve tried.

So why the hell is he getting so _stuck_ on this? Maybe it’s because it’s a relatively new type of magic; maybe he’s just interested. Maybe it’s because he’s seen firsthand the kind of things that happen when magic that could be used for _good_ gets twisted and mutilated and defaced by greedy fucking power-hungry assholes that want to use it to further their own personal goals; maybe it’s because he’s a great believer in making life as difficult as possible for the aforementioned greedy, power-hungry assholes.

In the end, Ed doesn’t have a fucking answer. He just nods, and sits back again.

“What about you?” Roy asks him, after a few minutes of silence, save for the scratch-scratch of his quill on the parchment.

“What _about_ me?” Ed asks. In the wake of his boredom and general inability to sit still, he’s started making a list of everything he knows so far, everything he needs to know. Then later today, he’ll go out into the city, find the biggest library he can, and start his search there. He should be gone _now_ ; it’s not like he’s doing anything productive. He doesn’t know why he isn’t, doesn’t know why he’s still sitting here on the floor watching making idle conversation while Roy tries to focus on his own work at the desk.

Probably because it’s warm in here, and fucking freezing out there. Probably nothing to do with the fact that, when Ed concentrates, letting the veil fall away from his eyes, Roy’s aura is _soothing_. All gently undulating light, like a wave, strung through with flecks of silver and, deeper, flashes of bright gold-orange fire.

It’s beautiful, and mesmerising, and Ed’s sitting here staring at it because the city gives off an incredible silver incandescence, but Roy’s own personal magic is raw and complex and completely different to what Ed would expect.

He doesn’t like being surprised, especially not by magic. And Roy’s gives off a feeling that is almost the exact opposite of the persona he shows on a daily basis, and it’s _frustrating as hell._

Also, soothing. But whatever.

“I told you something about myself,” says Roy distinctly, “it’s your turn. ‘Equivalent exchange, the only true way to ensure harmony and divine balance in any and all magical pursuits’.”

He’s quoting the basic textbook of magic, the one all students learn and memorise. Ed can probably recite parts of it in his sleep by now. In fact, he’s pretty sure he _has_.  
Therefore, he knows that Roy isn’t- _wrong_ , per se, which is actually fucking painful to think, let alone say out loud. So he settles for a glare, which does nothing, because Roy is not looking at him and is instead reaching serenely for another piece of paper on which to draw his lame, stupid diagrams.

“One question,” he grinds out, finally, clenching his fists on his knees. “You get one fucking question, alright?”

Roy wrinkles his brow at him, tapping his quill against his lip. The attention that it brings to this place does nothing to help Ed’s rising annoyance, and the bastard _knows it._

“Just one? You’ve asked me seven questions so far, if I count the ones at the beginning where you asked me if I’d killed the owner of this shop. Just one in return seems a little unfa-,”

“Fucking hellfire, _fine_!” Ed snaps, tightens his hands on his knees as his flesh palm burns with repressed magic, and is eternally grateful to the arrays stitched clumsily into the material that keep it from overflowing and exploding everything in a fifty-mile radius. “Seven questions! Go fucking nuts, asshole.”

Because the rules of equivalent exchange are set in stone, and Ed isn’t as much of a fool to try to cheat those laws. Not when the universe is already so fucking angry with him for everything he fucked up nine years ago. Not when he still owes so much, and has a cosmic debt worth at least a thousand lifetimes that he can never hope to repay but is trying his best despite it.

Ignoring equivalence now, so close to his goal, would be possibly the most puerile, idiotic, indescribably stupid thing he could do.

Roy is quiet for a long moment, thinking. He leans back in his chair, stretching, and again Ed finds himself watching the way his muscles move; his cheeks darken and he bites his lip _hard_. This is so fucking ridiculous. This is _so fucking ridiculous._

“What’s your favourite colour?” Roy asks, and Ed almost chokes on his breath.

“My- _what_?”

“Your favourite colour,” says Roy, as if it’s the most reasonable question in the world.

“Why the fuck do you want to know-,”

“That’s nine questions you’ve asked me now,” says Roy over the top of him, “but because I am an endless font of generosity, I will graciously agree to disregard the last two if you’ll just answer the question. It’s not that hard.”

It makes no sense. It makes _no sense_ for the bastard to be _this fucking attractive_ , when everything he says makes Ed want to put his fist through a window.

“Red,” he says at last, through gritted teeth. “I like red.”

Roy nods, absorbing the information. “Interesting. I’m asking because I want to get to know you better, if you’re going to be staying with me,” he adds, then continues before Ed can do anything but blink speechlessly at him at the last. “What languages do you speak?”

There are five. Ed tells him, and watches Roy’s face go from languid to impressed, and he gets up off his chair and sits down carefully on the floor opposite Ed, glancing at the intricately carved clock on the wall. As he does so, Ed gets a wonderful and not at all excruciating look at the pale line of Roy’s throat, and had to look away quickly before he goes bright red and ruins everything.

“How long have you been travelling?”

“Like, seven years.” Ed remembers the very beginning, being twelve years old and uncertain and hiding it behind layers of brashness and arrogance. He almost died so many fucking times, those first few years without Al. Winry had offered to join him, of course, but she had her training with Granny to complete, and she was already half-running the business by then, anyway, and besides- Ed had already ruined everything for one person he loved. He wasn’t about to force his horrific shitshow of constant fuck-ups onto anyone else, not after Al.

“Have you always been on your own?” There’s something- strange, about the way Roy phrases this, like there might be a double meaning, but Ed is still tired and the warmth of the room and the closeness of Roy’s magic- soothing waves arcing through Ed’s mind every time he got comfortable enough to slip back into magic-seeing-mode, like the way your eyes would unfocus if you stare idly for too long- was making it difficult to care.

Has he always been on his own? He’s met people, sure; in Xing he sort of accidentally befriended Ling, which was weird, since it had been his first experience with friendship apart from Winry- and there’d been people in the villages he stayed at on the road that would care enough to make sure he didn’t, like, _die_ , and sometimes they would even offer him to stay.  
But he always left. There was always something more important: Al came first. Al will always come first. He doesn’t- he’s never had _time_ to make real friends, and he knew when he first set out that there would be no turning back until he found what he was looking for, so the idea of _family_ is kind of- weird, and makes his stomach flip a little.

But he doesn’t know how to communicate this to Roy, and he’s not sure he _wants_ to, even though his whole fucking being sort of aches in this strange, not-quite-homesickness-but-definitely-some-kind-of-longing way when Roy looks at him like he’s genuinely interested in what he’s saying and it’s- it’s just. Weird.

So he just says, “…Yeah.” And leaves it at that.

“What about your family?”

This is a weighted question, and Ed has to take a moment to look critically at Roy’s eyes- he finds nothing but sincerity there, which in some ways is _worse_ than having some hidden motives behind this line of questioning- before he answers.

“My mom died when I was five, I don’t have a fucking clue where my dad is and I don’t want to know, and- that’s it.”

Roy knows he’s holding something back. He’s too smart not to; and Ed can see it in his eyes, the flicker of _something is missing_. But Roy doesn’t say anything, doesn’t press for more details, just nods, and runs a hand through his hair, and says simply, “My parents died when I was young, too,” and moves on to the next question.

It’s vaguely terrifying, in a distant kind of way, how quickly Ed settles down- the rest of the questions are nowhere near serious territory, and none of them are about magic. Roy doesn’t even ask about why Ed is constantly wearing gloves, which he’d kind of expected. Saves him the trouble of having to construct an elaborate lie, at least.

After Roy finishes his game of question-answer, Ed expects him to sit back on his chair again, but instead he just yawns widely, gets his sheaf of papers and starts up his notation again, this time on the floor. Ed stares at him for a second, chest curiously tight, and decides, fine. Whatever. Roy’s probably just more comfortable down here, it’s no big deal. Fuck.

(A voice in the back of his head is asking him insistently what the _fuck_ he’s still doing here. he should be _out_ , finding information, searching, _scouring_ the city for the shit he needs. Not wasting his time sitting on the floor in a workshop trying his damndest not to blush like a child every time Roy fucking _looks_ at him.)

In order to distract himself from the hot, sharp guilt spreading through his stomach, Ed leans over from where he’s buried cross legged in another pile of books and says offhandedly, “That’s never gonna work.”

“Excuse me?” Roy asks, raising his eyebrows at him over his papers- arrays and schematics and things that look suspiciously like doodles.

Ed sighs. The paper that Roy is currently poring over details a brand of magic that Ed isn’t familiar with- which is fucking _weird,_ has he mentioned how weird that is? This has never happened before, him coming across magic that he doesn’t immediately recognise and/or is proficient in. For all the unfamiliarity, though, the same laws apply to every type of magecraft, and Roy has made a _ton_ of rookie mistakes.

“It’s never gonna work,” he says again, “For one thing you’ve overcompensating sygils, you can get a much more efficient transfer with _half_ that amount of symbolwork. And the metal casing you’re designing can’t be _copper_ , for fuck’s sake, think about this _practically_ , will you?”

Roy regards him for a second, and Ed can see, all of sudden, curiosity warring with the need to defend his own pride in his eyes, before he shakes his head, flicking hair out of his eyes, and slides the paper across the floor to Ed with a tiny quirk of his eyebrows.

“Show me,” he says, quietly. Ed takes the paper, and starts talking.

 

***

 

There is a sharp knock at the door when Ed is halfway through arguing with Roy over the correct way to label a five-pointed array.

Roy blinks, looking around himself, and then up at the clock. It’s been two hours. Ed watches him remember who he is, what his deal is, the fact that he has a job- he watches him stand up, tug at the hem of his shirt, and walk towards the door, shoulder settling into the self-assured position that Ed decides he’s going to call the Cocky Bastard Pose from now on.

As soon as Roy’s out of sight, Ed slumps back against the wall, and glares at the floor.

It had been- nice, in a fucking weird way, to just _talk_ , and to argue magical theory with someone who at least _kind of_ understood what he was talking about. It was nice to- and Ed feels a burning flash of guilt and shame to even be _thinking_ this- _forget_.  It felt- good, not having to think about the search, and _Al_ , and the unfixable, irreversible, myriad of ways in which Ed has ever fucked up.

Things that are constantly on his mind were, for those meagre hours, non-existent, and it was a fucking relief. And Ed is more ashamed than he’s ever fucking been for that.

 _I’m sorry, Al_ , he thinks, but there’s no apology in the world that could make this shit better. God, he’s so fucking _stupid_ \- what was he thinking? That it was okay for him to sit on the floor and fuck around chatting about magic and correcting Roy’s mistakes? That it was okay to make fucking _jokes_ and tease Roy like they were _friends_ instead of people who’d only known each other for less than twenty four hours?

He’s the worst brother in the fucking world. Al deserves better. Al deserves someone who would actually get _on_ with it and find a fucking cure instead of taking _seven fucking years_ and not even putting his all into it because he’s too busy wasting time with trivial shit like a meaningless fucking crush that will never, ever work out.

“Ed?” says Roy from the doorway, and Ed looks up so fast he feels all the bones in his neck crack simultaneously.

Wincing and biting back a curse, he rubs at his neck and looks towards the door, where Roy is standing kind of hesitantly, one hand raised, and on the other side of him…

A woman, dressed in sturdy breeches and durable boots, with a sword at her hip and from neck to waist, gleaming in polished silver armour.

A knight.

 

 

“This is Riza Hawkeye,” says Roy, now in the kitchen, passing Ed a mug of steaming tea. _Hawkeye_. Is this the girl he mentioned, the daughter of the guy who owned this store?  
 Ed blows a curl of steam off it and eyes the woman- Riza- over the rim suspiciously. She raises an eyebrow back at him, and something about the set of her jaw and the way she sits, perfectly poised around her centre of gravity, tells him that if he were to do anything threatening, anything at all, she would have no problem killing him there and then and walking away calm as anything afterwards without a scratch on her, magic be damned. She might not even have to use the sword.

She is, quite frankly, fucking terrifying. Ed takes a sip of tea to conceal the fact that he wants nothing more than to _flee_ , which is a bad idea because it turns out to be way too fucking hot and he burns his tongue.

“Ed Elric,” he mutters, realising that Hawkeye is waiting for an introduction from him. She nods, eyes sweeping him up and down. He can feel her analysing the weapons at his belt, the way he’s standing, his defensive, wary posture, the tautness of his muscles: his teacher used to do exactly the same before every sparring match, right before beating him into the dirt.

“Pleasure to meet you,” says Hawkeye evenly. He nods, glancing briefly at the door. This is bad, bad, bad. He wants nothing more than to get the fuck _out_ of that room.

“Is everything alright?” Roy is asking Hawkeye, concern colouring his voice. She tilts her head towards Ed, then back to Roy. A look passes between them, a nonverbal conversation using only their eyes to communicate. Finally, she seems satisfied, because she sips her tea and making a musing humming noise.

“Not…exactly,” she says. “I’m here to check in, of course, but also to warn you. Something’s going on in the higher ranks.”

This obviously means something to Roy, because he stands up straighter where he’s leaning against the island counter, and his face is impassively smooth, as it always is when he’s hiding surprise.

“Is this connected to the deaths?” Roy asks, and she dips her head in a way that suggests agreement.

“It could be.”

“Wait-,” says Ed, cutting in, “what deaths? What’s going on?”

If there’s some serial killer running around the city or some shit then it’s going to make a hunt for information _way_ more fucking difficult. Especially if the Royal Guard is out questioning people already- anyone he’s likely to talk to, back alley magicians and information brokers, will be even more unwilling than usual to speak to strangers. For all they know, he could be a guard undercover.

Riza looks at him again, this time appraisingly. “Edward Elric, yes?” she says, instead of answering. “The travelling mage. There are a lot of rumours.”

Ed narrows his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

Roy runs his finger along the top of his mug, tracing the fired clay. It’s distracting, and also kind of sexy, and Ed has far, far too much to deal with right now without _that_ shit on his plate, too.

“Tell me what you’re doing in the city, and I’ll tell you what’s going on with the deaths,” she says, and drinks some more tea. Her eyes flick to Roy’s.

Ed puts his mug down, clenching his fists. The cold weather is making his automail ache- in the workroom it hadn’t been too bad, but now, in the openness of the kitchen, with its light walls and wide windows, a bolt of pain shoots over his shoulder and collarbone, where the connection port is. His knee feels stiff and achy, and he really has too fucking much to _deal with_ right now.

“Or,” he says in a snarl, “I could just go out into the city and find out _myself_ , since I don’t have to fucking tell you _anything_.”

Roy drains his tea, sets the mug aside, and clears his throat.

“Alright,” he says, and he looks so calm there with the clear light of day highlighting him in profile, making his edges seem lit up by magical rather than mundane means. “Riza, maybe we should tell him. It could end up concerning him later on, after all.”

“For the last time,” says Ed, “what the _fuck_ are you going on about?”

Riza puts her tea on the table next to her with a decisive _click_. She looks up, and she and Roy have another round of nonverbal communication that ends with her eyes flickering in what Ed interprets as Hawkeye-speak for an eye roll. In his periphery, her sheathed sword glows slightly, distracting him from his irritation for a second as he looks properly at it for the first time- it’s enchanted, and well-done, too; it gives off a subtle but powerful aura. Probably it’s spelled with strengthening magic to stop it from breaking in battle, sigils to keep the edge sharp. Maybe even something elemental- the image of a flaming sword appears in Ed’s head. That would be badass.  
Maybe he should get Roy to enchant one of _his_ blades like that- or, he reminds himself, since he isn’t going to be staying here that long, he could just learn flame magic and do it _himself_.

“Very well,” Riza says, and fixes Ed with a glare that reminds him of his teacher. It makes him feel like he should be apologising for something, although he’s not entirely sure what. “Although I _do_ expect to know at least the vague details of your presence here, sooner rather than later. There have been a slew of mass-murders across the city, and we- the Royal Guard- believe they were committed by a rogue magician.”

Well. That explains why it could end up involving him, at least. “And I would be under suspicion,” he says, “since I’m new around here, and I’m guessing not all the rumours talk about how fucking great  am.”

Hawkeye inclines her head as if to say _you guessed it, buddy_. Ed breathes a curse, gripping the edge of the counter with his flesh hand. It’s cold against his bare fingertips.

“Great,” he says, “So, you here to question me or something? Take me under arrest?”

Riza raises an eyebrow. “Only if you give me good reason to.”

Fuck.

“Christ,” he says, and folds his arms across his chest. “Fine. Fucking fine- I’m here because I’m looking for something, alright?” The look on her face suggests that no, it’s not alright. Ed grits his teeth and concentrates on looking firmly away from Roy’s direction. “Look, my- someone close to me is...ill, because of some dark magic, and I’m looking for the cure. That’s it. No fucking _murder_ or whatever, shit.”

He holds her gaze, willing her to see that he’s telling the truth, because if she demands the whole story he won’t be able to give it to her, and that could end nowhere good. Fuck, he wishes Al was here. He’d know exactly what to do. He wishes…

But he can’t afford to think like that, of course. If he keeps thinking about what he _wishes_ the world would be like, he’ll never fucking get _anywhere_.

There is a brief silence, before Riza nods, and Ed heaves an inward sigh of relief, but doesn’t relax. His entire body feels tense as a tripwire, pulled taut and liable to snap at any moment. His palm is tingling again, the pads of his fingers are burning hot. His metal arm feels like a block of pure concentrated pain hanging by his side, but he’ll deal. He always does.

Eventually, Roy moves the conversation on, asking for details on the murders, asking about someone called Maes, asking after Riza herself; smalltalk has never been Ed’s forte but it looks like Roy is fucking thriving. Good for him. Ed stops listening after a while, eyeing the world outside the window. Fuck, it’s going to be cold outside, and with his automail already hurting…but no, he has to go. He owes it to Al to start looking. And the sooner he finds what he’s looking for, the sooner he’ll be back across the country- back _home_. Where it all started.

When the dull ache in his leg becomes a burning to match the sensation in his arm, Ed leaves the room, mutters an excuse and heading upstairs to his cloak and knapsack. He kicks the door shut and collapses onto the mattress, dragging his knapsack over to him with difficulty. _Fuck_ , this hurts.  
With shaking hands he pulls the necessary herbs and powders out of his bag, pouring them into a flask and filling it with water- despite the pain he can still concentrate enough to pull together the water vapour in the air, concentrating it above the flask until it becomes a small rainstorm.

By this point the rest preparation of this potion is something he could do with his eyes closed; he’s barely concentrating as he fixes it, letting his mind wander in search for something else to distract him from the agony shooting through his shoulder and leg.

His mind, being a traitorous bastard, latches onto Roy. The image of Roy, sitting across from Ed on the floor, a small frown creasing his brow as he listens intently to what Ed’s saying; Roy chewing absentmindedly on his pen; Roy talking to the people that come knocking, performing little magic tricks for the sole purpose of showing off; snapping his fingers and making flames appear to the delight of whoever is watching him. Roy, framed by candlelight. Roy, squinting at a page in a journal where the writing is so cramped he can barely decipher it. Roy. Roy. Roy.

The sound of the door opening and closing again, Riza making her goodbyes and Roy returning them warmly, wishing her a good day, jolts him out of his thoughts. Oh. The potion is done, he realises faintly.

Fuck, this is a fucking problem, he thinks, draining the flask and shoving it back in his bag, brushing stray herbs off his lap and he uses a stack of books as leverage to heave himself off the floor. The aching at the ports of the prosthetics eases, but doesn’t completely disappear. Fine. Fine. He can deal; he’s been dealing since he was, what, eleven? He’ll be fine.

Roy, on the other hand, is less easy to deal with, simply because he is a human being and human beings can’t be fucking fixed by a quick potion and strength of will.

Ed scowls as he yanks his cloak off the chair where he left it, throwing it around his shoulders and fastening it in the front. He needs to remember to sew those temperature regulation sigils into it.

As he makes his way back out of the room, having emptied the bag of unnecessary items so it’s a lot less heavy and back-breaking than before, he remembers leaving home for the first time, the cloak brushing the backs of his calves. Winry telling him he looked dumb, dressed all in black ‘like some kind of dark mage, Ed!’ Him flinching at the words ‘dark mage’ and pretending he hadn’t, instead turning to show her the inner lining of the cloak, a deep red.  
He remembers walking away, tears blurring the corners of his vision, and wiping them away angrily, because _I have to do this, Al needs me, Al_ needs _me._

Ed pauses on the stairs, steadying himself against the wall. Deep fucking breaths. Keep walking. Eyes on the fucking prize, Elric. Don’t forget.

He finds Roy back in the kitchen, stacking mugs and frowning distantly at the wall.

“Hey,” he says, one hand on the doorframe. “I’m heading out.”

Roy blinks and turns to look at him, frown washed clean away. “Oh,” he says, “Of course. Your search. Need any help?”

“Nah,” Ed says, trying to keep his voice light. “You have a business to run and shit, right? You…hold the fort, or whatever. I’ll be back at some point.”

“’At some point’,” echoes Roy dryly. “That’s encouraging. At what point should I start getting worried?”

 _Worried._ The words leave Ed thrown suddenly off-kilter. Worried? Why would Roy be worried about him? Is this a normal human reaction? Does Roy consider them _friends_? Does Roy consider him someone worth worrying about?

Ed clears his throat. “Don’t,” he advises. “I can handle myself.”

Roy regards him from the washing-up basin, and Ed feels the flush threatening to spread to his cheeks, so he turns and walks towards the front door, boots heavy on the panelled wood flooring.

“I know you can,” comes Roy’s voice softly, from the kitchen. There is something sad in the way he says the words, something soft and gentle and far, far too much in the general Emotions area, so Ed doesn’t reply and instead does what he’s been fighting the urge to do since this morning.

He flees.

Out into the open air, slamming the door behind him, wincing when he wonders if that was too harsh of a way to close a door that doesn’t belong to you, but not stopping; never stopping, flying down the path to the gate and exiting out onto the street without looking back.

The whole city awaits him. A whole fucking treasure trove of information and secrets waiting for him to uncover. A thrill runs through him at the thought of it, the cure, what he’s been searching for _seven years_ to find; it’s tantalisingly close. He smiles grimly, tasting the coppery, flowery tang of magic on the air.

He picks a direction, and starts walking.

 

 


	3. effulgence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is asking themselves soul-searching questions, and life continues to kick Ed when he's down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry, this chapter is something of a non event??? i promise we will get to the Good Plot Things soon >:9 oh, also: some roy pov at the beginning, i hope this isnt too confusing ? i wasnt planning on switching viewpoints but then ,it happened anyway ,cool

 

The door slams behind Ed, and Roy very carefully sets down the mugs he was holding.

The building is, very suddenly, shrouded in an intense kind of quiet that leaves him feeling bereft and unsettled. Roy doesn’t turn around for a long time. He just stands there, staring at the wall in front of him, catching his breath. Even though there’s really no reason for him to _have_ to catch his breath, for him to have run out of breath in the first place.

Moving on autopilot, Roy walks to the workroom and sets himself down on the chair by the desk; he sifts through books and papers until he finds the journal he wants, and some distant part of himself is saying he might as well take advantage of the absence of his guest to get some proper work done, but the other eighty percent of his conscious mind is fixated on every single detail of Ed that he can remember.  
  
Ed, sprawled on the floor just behind him- Roy swallows, looks hard at the page in front of him without reading any of the words to stop himself from turning to stare at the place where Ed sat- idly sketching magical wards and symbols without even realising he’s doing it. Ed just this morning, waving his hand and performing a complex, high-level elemental mastery spell as though it was second nature to him, as though the magic came to him on instinct. Ed blushing deep red, faced with Nina’s unbridled praise. Ed leaning over to correct Roy’s efficiency calculations, reeling off numbers and formula and barely looking up from his book as he did so, the curving metal of his arm visible where his long sleeves ride up, the gap between the shirt and the glove.  
The sad, distant, _desperate_ expression that crosses his face when he thinks Roy isn’t looking at him.

Ed, hiding something.

It was something to do with his family, and to do with the reason he came to the city, and from what he’s pieced together Roy’s almost certain that he has a sick family member in desperate need for a cure. Whoever it is, Ed must be close to them. And it must be serious, for Ed to have travelled all this way, for Ed to have been searching _seven years_ ; Gods above, Roy can’t imagine how bad it’s been.

Seven years alone. No wonder Ed is a little skittish. 

Roy rolls the quill pen in his fingers, feathers brushing soft against his wrist, and wonders what it means, that emotion and empathy is cloying his throat at the thought of the mage he’s literally only just met spending seven whole years by himself. They haven’t- _bonded_ ; they’re not friends. In fact, Ed is _infuriating_ , and mysterious, and as a rule Roy tries his best not to take up with anyone mysterious enough to give off the impression that Ed does of a secret shadowy past; that sort of thing tends to invite nothing but trouble.

And it’s all fine, really; Ed can keep his air of mystery and his tragic backstory. Roy isn’t going to push him for answers- he understands that sometimes keeping secrets is the only way to ever give yourself some full measure of control over anything.

 But he _is_ curious. Not curious enough to ask about it and risk upsetting this strange not-friendship they have. But still, curious.

He flicks through the journal, once Berthold’s and now his to continue; the code it’s written in was one he wasn’t given the privilege of learning until he’d almost completed his training. He remembers how damn excited he’d been that day, to finally be learning the _real_ magic; Berthold had looked at him gravely and explained that this wasn’t something to be trifled with, and Roy had nodded and nodded and was inwardly thrilled out of his mind at the thought of getting to _see,_ getting to _learn_.  
  
In the middle of the journal is the page explaining, in very short, almost incomprehensible note form, the original array for the manipulation of fire.

 It’s an array that Roy knows very, very well.

Riza’s visit this afternoon was- strange. Roy was glad to see her, of course; he was always glad to see her. Along with Maes, she was one of his best, most trusted friends. They _know_ each other; Roy often thinks that Riza knows him better than he knows himself; they can communicate whole paragraphs with just a glance. Riza’s status as a knight doesn’t change the fact that Roy knows she would drop everything _,_ her loyalty to the king, her job, the life she’s built for herself, _everything,_ to help him if he needed her.

He is very, very lucky to have friends like her and Maes. God knows he doesn’t deserve them.

Because Riza’s been there for him for _years,_ since he was that small, scared shadow of himself in his teenage years, his world freshly scarred by his parent’s deaths, cast adrift and in desperate need of an emotional support. Those sunlit days spent reading in the library at her father’s countryside mansion, going out walking in the lush forests rolling over the estate, slowly growing to trust each other unequivocally: those are memories that he will never, ever regret.

And what came after; the _tattoo_ , those beautiful ink-dark lines curving over her back, her eyes- grave and serious and unwavering- as she told him: _I want you to burn it away._ He doesn’t regret that, either, mainly because Riza would never forgive him if he started feeling guilty about doing what she wanted him to. A big part of himself still recoils at the memory of the act itself; the smell of it, the way her muscles tightened with supressed pain.

If he regrets anything, he regrets his ineptitude, the clumsiness that is only apparent to him in retrospect.  
Now, that kind of precision work would be so much easier for him; he’s had _years_ of practice with the array, after all. But back then, he’d still been so _scared_ , hands trembling even as he willed himself to focus, biting his lip to stop the tremors, apologising afterwards when she winced at the fresh wounds.

The tattoo. The secret to a branch of magic that had gone unmastered and unexplored for centuries, perfected at last, inscribed on the back of the daughter of the man who created it.

Well- it’s not _perfected,_ exactly; Roy has since then shaped it into something less intricate, but no less beautiful; even now he’s still tweaking it, improving it slowly and with utmost care.

Every time he does so, he performs the ritual Riza’s father taught him to absorb the magic- it’s an imprecise art, the knowing of arrays. If mages had to draw the array every time they wanted to use it, it would be a rather inefficient mode of magic-use. So instead some bright spark- _hah-_ came up with a ceremony to be carried out over the drawn array- the type of ink used is very specific, and a nightmare to procure; Roy has to keep a whole supply of it stocked in advance because of the rarity of the ingredients- that lifts the essence of the array, the very magical _shape_ of it, out of the paper and deposits it into the mage’s mind.

It’s less of a physical movement, and more the transference of an _idea_ , the intent behind the sketch transmuted into thought and captured, intact, by the mage’s own will.

Roy looks hard at one of the candles in front of him and adjusts the flame so it brightens, just slightly. The light falling over the paper in front of him evens out, a smooth pool of candlelight, all warm gold and honey. It reminds him, as most things seem to be doing today, of Ed’s hair and Ed’s eyes. Distilled sunshine, that’s what it was.

The paper is soft from years of handling; the bindings of the journal cover are cracked. It is the most precious thing in the whole store, and it doesn’t even contain the full array- just pieces of it. Now that Roy has it etched into his mind, he’s decided it would be far too dangerous to have a copy. Just in case.

Which makes him think about what Ed was saying today, all languid and catlike on the floor of Roy’s workroom, his dark clothing blending in with the deep wood flooring, his hair as bright as treasure against it.

 _Seems like this has a lot of potential for being abused_.

He’s not wrong.

Hawkeye Senior had been incredibly firm, almost paranoid, regarding that. Roy remembers the feverish light in his eyes a few months ago when Riza had come to take him to the hospital: _Don’t let anyone see it. You don’t know what they could do, the ways they could_ use _it. Don’t let the king find out!_

Roy knows. And he burns every single recruitment letter that the Royal Guard drop through his front door.

   
His mind keeps turning back to Ed; he can’t concentrate on the journal in front of him. Can’t stop _thinking_ ; he has so many questions. God, he has so many fucking questions. Where did Ed get his metal arm? Does he have more prosthetics? Why does magic seem to come easier for him that for anyone else? Why does he constantly wear gloves? For that matter, why is one of his gloves full and the other fingerless?

And other questions, too, questions that Roy lets himself think of but will never let himself ask: is Roy imagining things or can Ed feel the tension thick between them? Does Ed- no.  
He stops himself, because what is the point of finishing that question? Because _why_ would Ed want him? Roy’s good looking, he knows _that_ , would have to be something of a fool not to- but there is something about Ed that suggests he has twelve thousand more important things to be thinking about, and romantic relationships with complete strangers are not one of them.

Roy sighs, tossing the quill aside. He’s not going to get any work done; he’s resigned himself to that fact. He’s been so _obvious_ , too, with his flirting- Riza had noticed, earlier. Roy had seen the look in her eyes, the one that said _Are you sure you know what you’re doing? I trust you, but your track record suggests that you can be a bit of an idiot sometimes._

It’s a good question, and one that he knows the answer to. No. No, he doesn’t know what he’s doing; doesn’t know why all of a sudden he’s thrown caution to the wind and invited a vagabond mage with more than a few secrets and terrifying magical prowess into his home for the foreseeable future.  
He has _no fucking clue_ why he thought that was a good idea- he was fairly certain his logical thought processes cut out completely after he got a good look at Ed’s eyes- bright, bright gold- and Ed’s face- sharp cheekbones, strong jaw, a pale scar on his forehead mostly concealed by the fall of his bangs- and Ed’s hair- more gold; the mage was drowning in it- and the dangerous, sharp way he held himself that was so damn alluring, and he could do nothing but think _please don’t leave please don’t leave please don’t leave._

If Maes was here he’d cheerfully pat Roy on the back and laugh at him about his poor life choices, and then he’d say something fond and exasperated about how Roy really is an utter buffoon, really, and then they’d move on.

If Riza was here-again- she’d probably just give him disapproving looks and calmly and rationally tell him all the reasons why this is a bad idea before sighing and using her supernatural powers, of which Roy and Maes are convinced she has, to determine whether or not Ed poses a serious threat to Roy’s wellbeing. And then she would use that to make an informed decision on whether or not to kill him.

Maybe it’s a good thing Riza isn’t here anymore. Roy’s not sure what _that_ fight would look like, and he’s certain that he really doesn’t want to find out.

 

***

 

The city is still cold as fuck, and Ed is beginning to miss the glowing abundance of candles in Roy’s house.

Scowling hard enough to clear a path for himself in the crowded street before him, Ed silently curses _Roy_ his fucking _candles_. Fucking flame magicians. The reason his automail is doing the magic-imbued metal equivalent of screaming at him is because of the drastic fucking temperature difference between inside Roy’s place and out _here_. Therefore, this is all fucking Roy’s fault for having such a bullshit cosy home.

If Ed had slept outside in an alley somewhere, he wouldn’t be having this problem. He would’ve acclimatised to the freezing cold by now.

This part is the part he’s used to: seeking out the people who know what he wants to know. This is the part he knows; this is the part he maybe even takes pride in, because he’s _damn_ good at finding out shit that other people don’t really want anyone else to know.

So it’s not that hard, really, to stop in at the herbalist’s to stock up and ask offhandedly where the best place to get a drink is in this city, and from there it’s simply enough to find the most knowledgeable-looking shady figure to give him directions to ‘somewhere he can find information’.

And that turns out to be some seedy bar tucked into a corner on the very edge of what people call the ‘good side’ of the city. Ed’s almost-all-black ensemble makes him stand out in the bright, bustling crowds in the main streets, but in there he fits right in.

And he doesn’t even have to punch anyone to get what he wants, which is actually kind of disappointing. Al always said that violence wasn’t a healthy way to resolve issues, but, empirical method proving, in seven years of travelling Ed hasn’t found a _better_ coping mechanism.

But he keeps in mind that making Al proud is, like, his main _raison d’etre_ , and decides not to immediately resort to his usual tried-and-true routine of punching first, asking questions later.  
And it pays off, apparently, because in the back corner of the grimy bar, a figure dressed in a very dirty, very ragged-looking half-cloak who Ed takes one look at and christens Shifty-Looking Magician Number Two, makes eye contact with him, and Ed had buys him a drink- with the very last of his money, so he feels like he deserves some fucking gratitude for that.

In exchange for the shitty alcohol, Shifty-Looking Magician Number Two casts a shifty look around the bar, the layer of grease and god knows what else on the slablike tabletops, the stony-faced inhabitants with their belts bristling with knives and spikes, and mutters an address. Ed leaves, palms fizzing, the bartender sending him a dirty look as he swings the door shut behind him.

Any other time, this would be exhausting. But the search is what Ed is used to, and following a trail is made easier by the fact that every new piece of information sparks something deep inside him like a tinderbox flaring, because every step brings him closer to the _cure_ , and therefore to _Al._

So he follows the fucking scent, metaphorical nose to the icy-laced ground, and he treks through the city for hours and hours until he finds himself standing outside the huge iron gates of Central Library.

Fucking incredible.

It is. It is fucking incredible. It is everything he thought it would be, and he hasn’t even set foot _inside._ The architecture alone- Jesus fucking shit, this place is a magic-user’s _wet dream_ ; the amount of symbolwork and sigils etched into the marble on the outside alone is enough to momentarily blank out every part of his brain that isn’t constantly thinking about magic.

The address Shifty-Looking Magician Number Two had given him was a basement address; Central city worked on two levels: underground, and above ground. Subterranean buildings were for the poor, and for people who wanted their work to remain secret, and they were marked with a _1_ in the address. Above-ground buildings had _2s_.  
Whoever Ed is looking for, they’re hiding out somewhere underneath the library, and he needs to figure out how to get there.

First course of action: is there a sewer entrance nearby that he can use? Reluctantly, he tears his eyes away from the building above him- if he could, he would stand there and just drink the sight in, study the runes and the spellwork from a distance, maybe scale the wall under cover of night to get a closer look; it would be worth it, it really would…

But he can’t. He has a job to do, and no matter how fucking awe-inspiring the famous Central Library is on the outside, he needs to focus.

So he drags his gaze away, and he starts the long search for a sewer entrance, making his way around the outside in a hundred-metre radius. There are buildings and the streets don’t go around in a perfect circle, of course; nothing could be _that_ easy, so it’s not precise. And he has to stay relatively inconspicuous; there are Royal Guards fucking _everywhere_ and while he may have met a knight earlier that didn’t seem _too_ bad, all things considered, Ed highly fucking doubts that everyone is going to be that willing to disregard his status as a mysterious stranger, the subject of many interesting and dangerous rumours.

He sticks to the side of the street, close to the wall, keeps his eyes down and hunches his shoulders- after all this time he’s learned a thing or two about blending in. He just doesn’t use these particular skills very often.

Gradually, as he moves around the perimeter of the library, searching for any way to get down underground without having to break in to the library itself, the sun starts to sink low in the evening sky, lengthening the shadows on either side of the street Ed is currently examining. The temperature, already dipping, drops further along with the light, and the streets begin to empty slowly, people trickling off back to their homes, out of the cold and the dark and the biting wind.

 

The whole thing, Ed is quick to discover, is pointless. There are no proper entrances to the sewers near here; they’re miles back by the city borders, and if he was to go through one of _those_ he’d get lost in no time. Navigating through miles of sewers below the city is tantamount of navigating in a labyrinth, and as much as Ed likes puzzles he doesn’t have _time_ to do that.  
So he’ll need to get into the library. That’s really the only other option, but there are so many fucking _unknowns_. Do you need ID to get in? In that case, he’s screwed. He doesn’t have one, and enchanting a piece of paper to act as one won’t get him past _these_ wards- he’s standing, again, outside the library gates, eyes narrowed, studying the curling waves of silver magic emanating from it.  
Even if you _don’t_ need ID, there are guards inside, lots of them. He can make out their distinct auras through the bubble of wards around the building; the armour is all spellbound and shining and there are _a lot_ of them. Makes you wonder, really, why the king has set such a heavy guard on a _library_.

Then again, this is Central Library, most famous and renowned. There are probably a lot of people who want to steal things from it, and knowledge is really the most dangerous thing of all.

The guards and the only problem. Even if he gets through the wards and past the sword-toting patrolling knights, he doesn’t have blueprints of the building handy. He doesn’t know how to get to the basement; even if he can somehow get his hands on blueprints, he doesn’t know if the basement will even be _listed_ , if it’s as top-secret as the information-brokers of the city are making it sound.

This, Ed thinks, glaring at the scalloped edges of the rooftop, is a fucking problem.

 

Now that his search is a bust- Ed is shaking, partly from cold and partly because he’s so fucking angry; the automail is rattling slightly where the plates overlap- there’s no point standing around here glaring up at the library. It’s still beautiful, a work of art, a stunning testimony to eons of knowledge and innovation and illumination, but now it all seems tainted by how fucking _pointless_ this day has been.

He _will_ get in there. He’ll break in if he has to; it might be one of the most well-defended buildings in the known world, but no amount of protective wards is going to stop Ed when he’s determined to do something-

Maybe he should go _now_ , break in right now and get this over with once and for all, but the part of his brain that sounds like Al is telling him to wait, and plan, and do this properly.

Doing things properly is new. He never used to- fuck; Ed _hates_ his younger self, not just for fucking up his and Al’s lives, but also for being an arrogant, irrational, hotheaded _prick._ And he gets it, he does, he still feels that sudden blood-rush of anger, still gets the tunnel vision and the pounding pulse and the violent urge to _act, now_ , but-

But he never solved anything like that. Just kept fucking making it worse, and making it worse, and fucking up more and more even as he tried to fix it.

He’s a mess now, but he was even more of a mess back then. It’s about fucking time he learns some restraint, probably.

Shit, it feels weird thinking that, though.

But without Al by his side, the next best thing is the part of him that sounds like the Al in his memories, so he listens to that and turns on his heel, the dull throb of his automail a constant background ache that ebbs and spikes with every step.

As he heads back towards Roy’s house, retracing his steps from today, the last few people left on the streets watch him pass, faces twisted in distrust and fear. He ignores them. As long as he isn’t being arrested, who fucking cares what they think of him?

It’s not a new experience, being hated. Or, maybe hated is the wrong word- although Ed’s pretty sure there’s some hatred going around, too- maybe _trepidation_ is more accurate. People are scared of him, and they’re scared of what he’s going to do, because even in a city as full of life and magic as this one, people don’t like things that are different. And Ed is about as incongruous as it gets.  
Whatever the feeling is, it’s made every single inn he’s stopped at throughout the day- just out of curiosity, just to see if he can get a room somewhere else; there’s no _reason_ for it, just, looking- raise their prices above and beyond the equivalent of a king’s fucking ransom, and for the ones that really want to make sure he never tries to stay there, they straight-up tell him he’s not wanted.  
They make signs to ward off dark magic when he steps through the door; they tell him it’s not a good time to be taking in strangers; they glance at his dark cloak and the knives concealed beneath it and they clear their throats and stiffly ask him to leave, he’s making the patrons nervous.

Ed would be insulted, if he hadn’t heard it all before.

Hell, he’d probably still be insulted after that, but at this point he’s just- tired. It’s like, he’s so fucking _close_ to the goal that’s consumed him for seven years (two thousand five hundred and fifty-five days, give or take) that he just doesn’t have room in his head to be angry about shit like people disliking him.

Also, he kind of agrees with them. He’s hasn’t really done much to make himself out to be a very likeable person.

Also- and this is the part that makes him pause in the streets, boots skittering over the cobbles as he takes a sharp breath and realises where he’s heading back to without even thinking about it- he doesn’t really _need_ another place to stay. Not while Roy’s still, you know, tolerating him.

Ed clenches his fists, feeling the magic bubble like handfuls of hot coals in his palms. Even his automail is receptive to the magic building up there like lactic acid in overworked muscles; it’s something to do with the enchanted metal. He would ask Winry about it, except for, you know, the fact that she’s all the way on the other side of the fucking country.  
 He takes a breath, the cold air a shock, jolting into his lungs.

This- thing, with Roy (it’s so fucking stupid to be calling it a ‘thing’ in the first place; this is totally fucking one-sided. Roy is some stupid fucking rich mage capitalising off, off consumerist culture, and Ed is- what? A tragic backstory and a couple of metal limbs. There is no ‘ _thing’_ to even be considering, why would Roy ever want someone like him?), as Ed keeps having to remind himself, is the least of his priorities.

The goal comes first. Eyes on the _fucking_ prize, Elric. He has to do this, has to fix this. He has to make everything that’s happened somehow _worth it_ , otherwise- otherwise there’s not really any point of being alive, is there?

So Roy, and the shitty fucking fairytale love story Ed is spinning out of their situation, is not something Ed can afford to think about.  
It’s for the best, really, if he just forgets about the whole thing.  

 

***

 

Ed gets back, and Roy is in the workroom, fast asleep.

His breath catches as he pause sin the doorway, one hand on the frame, the other half-raised, like- like what? Like he’s going to _reach out_? Fuck, this is ridiculous. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He takes a cautious step into the room.

He should wake Roy up, right? It can’t be- can’t be _comfortable_ , sleeping like that, hunched over in his chair with his head pillowed on his folded arms. The feather of his quill is just barely tickling his face where it’s lying on the desk in front of him. He wrinkles his nose in his sleep every time it does.

The flames are casting orange-gold light on his head. His hair is falling over his eyelids. There is a small frown line between his eyebrows. Ed wants to smooth it away.

Fuck, fuck, fucking _fuck_.

He should leave. He should turn around right now and leave, pretend he just came in and headed straight upstairs and went the fuck to sleep instead of doing- whatever the fuck he’s doing right now. What the fuck is he doing right now?

Roy makes a small, muffled noise, and Ed freezes in place.

For a moment, he doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe; he doesn’t _dare_ to. He just fucking stands there, a statue, eyes wide and fixed on Roy’s sleeping form- Roy makes the noise again, the tail-end of a broken sound, full of- fear.

Nightmares are things that Ed is very familiar with.

He breathes out, a silent exhale, and the rest of him remains stock-still, caught.

Roy looks very, very young and vulnerable, just sitting here like this with all his papers out; when had he fallen asleep? Hours ago? Minutes ago? Stupid thing to do, Ed thinks; falling asleep out in the open like that is a stupid risk to take, but then- Roy isn’t helpless, is he? Flame magic, dangerous shit to be messing with. And he has his alarms, his wards- Ed can feel them, the magic of them, encircling the building.

He’s just- sleeping.

Fuck.

Really, really, Ed should just leave him to it, he’s stopped making noises so if Ed just turns around and leaves the room and goes upstairs and shuts the door then he can pretend this never happened, can pretend his heart isn’t fucking _racing_ , he really, really should just-

And then Roy opens his eyes, and everything Ed is thinking dies as his mind goes utterly blank.

 

***

 

Roy raises his head, blinking, and raises a hand to rub at his nose where the quill had brushed him, and Ed must make a noise, or _something_ , because suddenly Roy jerks round in his seat, one hand coming up with his fingers positioned as if he’s about to _snap_.

There is a beat, where they just stare at each other, unmoving.

Then Roy slowly lowers his hand. Ed breathes out, and relaxes. He’d been halfway reaching for his knives, he realises, folding his arms instead.

Roy clears his throat.

“Welcome back,” he says, eyes flickering to the journal on his desk. He flips it shut, and stands up, pushing his chair back. “Did you find anything?”

Words. Words, Ed, use your _fucking_ words.

“Uh, no,” he says, and shakes his head. Pull it the fuck together. He’s a fucking world-class mage, for fuck’s sake. “No, it was bullshit, actually. Fucking library guards won’t let me in.”

Roy- nods, and he’s just _standing there,_ staring at Ed kind of intently, and is he finding this whole exchange as excruciatingly awkward as Ed is? Because he fucking hopes so.

“Did- when did you get back?” Roy asks, which Ed supposes is a polite way to ask _have you just been fucking standing there watching me sleep and if so for how long?_

“Just now,” says Ed quickly, “I walked past and saw you were. Sleeping. Sorry if I woke you up.”

This is the most painful conversation he’s ever fucking had, and he _knows_ he’s blushing and he _knows_ he’s about a second away from panicking and sprinting out of the room, and he can’t calm down. Roy hasn’t taken his eyes away from Ed’s face, and he _can’t. Calm. Down._

“If you did, it’s probably for the best,” says Roy, “Desks aren’t the most comfortable places to fall asleep at.”

“Yeah,” says Ed, because what the fuck _else_ is there to say? Still, he probably should’ve come up with something better than _yeah_ , but really, how can he be blamed for that when the firelight is kind of playing over Roy’s face, and his pale skin is sort of dusty gold and his hair is kind of sleep-mussed, and it’s warm in the room, warmer that the outside and Ed never fucking wants to leave?

He swallows, and Roy is still looking at him, and he is looking back.

His heart is thrumming at the base of throat like a fucking bird is trapped there or- or _something_ ; Ed’s never been good at this poetry metaphor bullshit and right now he doesn’t have the slightest clue what’s going on and everything he said to himself outside, every part of that pep talk he’d given himself that boiled down to _forget Roy, forget everything about how he makes you feel, focus on the goal, the goal, the goal_ —

He knows it’s there, in the back of his mind, because it’s _always_ there. But with Roy looking at him like this, still not-quite awake, his mask slipping so that his face is softer and more open, and there is something in his eyes that translates to _want_ , Ed really, really can’t think about that right now.

Ed can’t really do anything except stare back, and hope that something happens before he explodes from pure fucking tension.

Roy makes a movement, stepping forwards; his mouth opens like he’s about to say something—Ed tenses involuntarily, a reflex, and Roy notices because Roy notices _everything,_ the observant bastard, and stops.

And the moment passes, fleeting and awkward, and Roy smoothly transitions back into Regular Smug Bastard Roy, skipping over the hesitation in his step to walk straight past Ed.

“The washroom is next to your room, if you forgot,” he calls as he heads to the kitchen. “Otherwise, you look exhausted. Get some rest.”

Still standing in the middle of the workroom, surrounded by books and frozen in place by the ghost of Roy’s fucking eyes on him, Ed snaps back into reality.

“What the fuck does _that_ mean,” he snarls, “I don’t look _exhausted_ , asshole-,”

“Is that any way to speak to your gracious host?”

“You fucking- is _that_ any way to speak to your _guest_?”

They trade insults, back and forth, as Ed climbs the stairs heavy-footed and angry, and Roy does whatever the fuck he’s doing in the kitchen, his voice all cool snark and smugness.

That- thing, in the workroom. What _was_ that? Did Ed imagine it? He slams the door to his room shut as soon as he’s inside and yanks off his cloak and boots, falling onto the mattress. Despite the candles, it’s cold again. _It’s in your bones_ , his mother would say, and then probably throw three more jumpers at him.  
Ed doesn’t want to think about her, doesn’t want to think about anything. He _especially_ doesn’t want to think about Roy, Smug Bastard Roy, and he pulls the blankets over his head with a growl, squeezing his eyes shut.

Tomorrow he'll plan, stake out the library, and figure out a way to get inside and down to the basement access without getting caught. Tomorrow he'll cut the crap with Roy; hell, he'll find a new place to stay if he has to. Tonight has only fucking proved what he’s known all along: there is no point wasting his time here with something he’ll never fucking have. Something he _can’t_ have.

Ed hates falling asleep angry, it always fucks up his dreams and they’re bad enough anyway- but he doesn’t have much of a choice. He's almost laughably exhausted, after a day of running all over the fucking city for _nothing_. Sleep claws at his skin, and he tips into it like he is falling from a great height.

His dreams are full of blood and screams and shadows.

 

 


	4. tenebrosity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow okay so this is going to be the last chapter i post until AUGUST because i am literally leaving to go to spain for 10 days iiiinnnn......10 minutes!!!!! okaY i need to GO but i will see you all with a new chapter when i get back !!!!
> 
> EDIT: there was a bunch of mistakes near the beginning where i kept my TK markers (places where i need to add more stuff in so i ctrl+f to TK and go back and write more when im done) and forgot to get rid of them but i have fixed it now!!! srry about that lmao

  
  

His mother is there, her face as young and beautiful as it always was, her body a wreck of blood and splintered bone. That’s not a surprise. She’s always there, usually in worse condition that this. And Al, too, he’s there, and the book with the spiralling twisting lines of spellwork on the cover, lines that are writhing and convulsing as they reach out and wrap around Ed’s wrists, dragging him in. He twists in their grip; he tries to scream, to call out, but his throat works silently. Al stares at him, uncomprehending.

“I can’t hear you,” he says, “Speak a little louder, brother.”

The inky lines have formed hands, and the hands have formed claws, and they are winding tighter and tighter around his arms and his legs, pulling him towards the book and behind the book is the _gate_ , and Ed struggles and fights and Al is just standing there, cupping his hand to his ear as he tells him again and again, _speak up, brother_. And their mother stands behind Al, looking just like she used to, with her hair loosely tied over one shoulder, hands resting on Al’s shoulders. She looks at Ed; her eyes tracing over the arms reeling him into the darkness, and he tries to reach out to her, but she shakes her head sadly.

Claws dig into his flesh, ripping, _tearing_ , and Ed _screams_ -

 

And opens his eyes, choking on air. His sight darts around the room dizzyingly; he realises he’s gripping one of his knives beneath the covers. He sees: candles- blankets- books- _Roy_ -

Roy, who is standing gripping the doorframe, panting slightly. As if he’s just sprinted up the stairs to get here.

Ed relaxes his hold on the knife, and closes his eyes.

It doesn’t help: behind his eyelids, all that’s left is darkness, and in the darkness is-

No. no no no no no. the sheets are wrinkling in his grip; he clutches them harder, and the strain makes him feel less like he’s spinning seven thousand feet above the city.

“Shit,” he manages, after a minute.

“You were shouting,” says Roy, and Ed jerks his head up to look at him, and then finds the sight of him all rumpled and non-bastardly too much to handle in this state, and has to stare hard at his hands instead. His fists are shaking slightly where they’re clenched in the blankets. It hurts a little, but he can’t seem to unfurl them. “I thought you were being murdered.”

That explains the out-of-breath-ness, at least. Ed swallows down a mouthful of air, and draws his knees up to his chest. He’s cold despite the warmth of the candles, despite the warmth of everything in this house.

“Only by my own fucking subconscious,” he says, a fraction of a second too late. Shit, his head is still too- fucked up, to deal with a conversation right now, he can’t-

Carefully, Roy puts one foot into the room, then looks at Ed as if asking for permission to enter. Twelve different vampire jokes immediately appear in Ed’s mind, which is a fucking shame, because it’s always a shame for good material to go to waste because you’re too busy trying your hardest to remember how lungs work to take advantage of a good opportunity.

“Do you want me to go?” Roy asks, and it’s actually kind of laughably shitty that Ed’s first reaction is _no!_ and then immediately following that, _wait, yes!_ with an undertone of _never_ that isn’t really doing wonders for Ed’s breathing problems right now.

“It’s your house,” he says instead of any of those options, and lets Roy interpret it however he chooses.

Roy sits down on the end of the mattress. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Ed snorts derisively, and glares at his hands. “About what, my fucked up subconscious? My traumatic fucking past? The amount of energy wasted by those candles in front of the window, because it would be way more efficient if you just fixed the fucking window itself instead of warding the flame against disruptive air currents?”

Roy blinks at him “I never thought of that,” he says, and Ed rolls his eyes.

“Of course you fucking didn’t.”

They are silent for a moment; Roy regarding the candles and Ed steadfastly looking anywhere but at Roy, half-lit by flames and gorgeously fucking sleep-ruffled this time of night.

“Would you like some tea?”

Everything hurts- his arm, his leg, his head, his _brain_. He’s still so damn tired. All the shadows in the corners of the room look like they’re about to start moving. They are insidious with silent threat, and Ed is way too fucking jittery to be making wise decisions right now.

“Yeah,” he says, “Why the fuck not.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Roy, and gets up to go and make the tea.

Ed releases a shaky breath, and finally, finally, he manages to uncurl his fingers from their iron- haha, more like steel, right?- grip on the bedsheets. He kicks them away from him. It’s too warm. Too cold, too warm, too _much_.

God, he fucking hates nightmares. It’s been years, of course; he’s used to them, he has them _all the fucking time_ , and for some reason they never, ever get any fucking easier. Everything else- the loneliness, the relentless exhaustion, the way the universe seems to get off on kicking him while he’s down- is manageable. Not _fun_ , but it’s fucking manageable, and he’s _doing alright_.

He’d be fine, if it wasn’t for the fact that every time he tries to close his eyes, he’s assaulted by this- this fucking onslaught of memories; memories and nightmares and half-remembered things that he doesn’t quite know if they’re real or not all tangled up in his head, twisting everything and turning it grotesque.  
The worst part isn’t how vivid they are, how _real_ they seem- although that is pretty fucking bad. The worst part is how it’s all Ed’s fucking fault anyway, and it’s really no less than he deserves.

“God _fucking_ damn it,” he whispers, and drags his hands over his face and into his hair, swallowing.

In the hallway outside, a floorboard creaks, and Ed’s gaze snaps immediately to the dark rectangle of the doorway, sitting bolt upright, every muscle tense.

A second later Roy comes into view, carrying a steaming mug in each hand, placing one foot in front of the other very deliberately. He’s staring at the floor, brow furrowed slightly in concentration, so he doesn’t see Ed’s deer-in-the-headlights posture. Small mercies.

When Roy gets through the door, opening it properly with his foot, his eyes fall on Ed, who has somehow managed to uncoil his muscles and is doing his best impression of someone who is relaxed. Roy raises his eyebrows at him and smiles in a way that is probably supposed to be charming, and leans down to hand Ed his mug.

“One cup of tea, perfectly brewed,” he says, and reclaims his seat at the end of the mattress with his own drink.

Ed just looks at him flatly, and wraps his hands tighter around the mug, fighting a shiver. It’s really _not_ cold in here; they’re surrounded by two thousand fucking candles, after all, but- still. It’s probably just the aftermath of the nightmare, determined to continue fucking him up even after it’s over.

Roy blows a curl of steam from the surface of his tea, eyes thoughtful as he stares off somewhere into the middle distance. They sit there for a while, Roy looking at not much in particular, and Ed trying desperately to pretend he’s not stealing fucking glances at him like some preteen kid with a crush.

“Let’s play a game,” he says suddenly, and Ed squints at him in suspicion.

“What kind of game?”

“You know all about the rumours making the round of the city,” says Roy, gesturing with his mug in the direction of the window- it’s still dark outside, Ed hadn’t even noticed; not only has he woken Roy up by having a nightmare, of _all_ fucking things, he’s managed to do it in the middle of the fucking night, too. Fucking wonderful. “The ones about you.”

“…Yeah,” says Ed guardedly, “So?”

“ _So,_ ” says Roy, leaning forwards with a smirk, and that shouldn’t be as hot as he makes it, “some of them are fairly…imaginative. I for one would like to know what’s true and what’s false.”

“So that’s the game?” Ed raises an eyebrow. “Wow. That sounds like _so much fun_. Asshole.”

Roy shrugs, sipping his tea, shifting around on the mattress so his back is to the wall. “We don’t have to play,” he says, “we can sit here in silence until the awkward atmosphere becomes too excruciating to bear and I leave to save us both from dying from the agony of it.”

It’s kind of infuriating, the way he just comes out with these bullshit smartass sentences and says them all in his fucking velvety voice, and all Ed wants to do is grin and make smartass comments of his own right back at him, but that is a slippery fucking slope and he _can’t_.

 “Fucking hell, Roy,” says Ed, and he really doesn’t mean to laugh; it just _happens_. The rush of endorphins is enough to delay the realisation that- _fuck_ , did Ed just call Roy ‘Roy’? “-- God, _fine_ , I’ll play your stupid fucking game. Go.”

He _did._ This is terrible. This is terrible, and awful, and Ed should’ve fucking left when he’d had the chance. Roy is gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling. “I heard a good one yesterday,” he says, “What was it- when you were just sixteen, you beat a whole city of trained warriors in a martial arts contest?”

“Oh, I know that one,” says Ed, “Yeah, that’s false. It was an arm wrestling contest, I was fifteen, and they weren’t trained, they were just fucking _cheaters._ I still won, though,” he adds, remembering.

That whole thing had taken place so long ago, the memories are- faded. He’s forgotten a lot of what happened back then, just because he’s always got so much more shit to worry about it all just kind of…piles up on top of everything else in his brain and obscures some of it from memory.  
The arm wrestling contest, though, that he remembers.  
Maybe because it was his first win- even though he’s not sure he can count that as a proper victory- after a long string of nothing but losses and dead ends and bad days, and it stuck with him.

Roy grins. “I would expect nothing less. Alright, this is more of a story, but- _some say_ that you fought the Crimson Lotus magician in the north and almost died when he stabbed you with a-,”

Ed cuts him off by silently lifting up his shirt.

Roy stops talking.

The scar stretches from the top of Ed’s ribs to his lower stomach on the left side; above it, curling around his ribs from his back on the right are the sweeping black lines of the magical potential tattoos, but those aren’t what draw attention. Not when he has the scar to distract people. It’s big and ugly and a red-pink colour; the scar tissue is puckered in places where it was worse, and Ed watches Roy’s face as he registers each of these things for himself.

As soon as he’d tugged his shirt up, revealing the mess the iron bar had made of his abdomen, he’d regretted it. But it’s too late to take it back now; Roy is taking it in, and Ed readies himself for the horror and the revulsion and the disgust, because that’s _always_ the-

“The rumourmongers said you were sixteen when this happened, too.”

Oh. He lets his shirt fall. “Yeah,” he says, thinking back, “that sounds about right, yeah.”

Roy is looking at him with a complicated expression on his face. Ed bristles.

“What?” he says, defensive, “Why are you looking at me like-,”

“You were _sixteen_?” Roy says. Ed looks at him oddly for a second- what is he _getting_ at?

Eventually he just shrugs and leans back on his hands. “Yeah, so what? It’s not that big of a deal. The guy was a class-A shitbag, but I didn’t die, so.”  
  
Roy is giving him a faintly incredulous look, and Ed scowls at him. “What?”

“You got _impaled_ during a fight with an incredibly powerful dark magician when you were sixteen years old, but you didn’t die, so everything’s fine?”  
  
“Yeah,” Ed snarls, “Do you have a fucking problem?”  
  
Roy shakes his head, raises his hands as if he’s about to reach out, then thinks better of it and put them back down again. “No, no, it’s just…Ed. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m sort of beginning to understand what an…absolutely incredible person you are, and how strong you were even back then, and it’s boggling my mind a little.”

At ‘don’t take this the wrong way’ Ed had been ready to throw the fuck _down_ , but then Roy had said- that next part, and suddenly he’d forgotten how to form coherent thoughts.

His cheeks are flaming, he fucking knows it, and- _absolutely incredible? Strong?_ Yeah, Ed supposes, he’s pretty strong; he beat all those assholes in arm wrestling- but somehow he doesn’t think that’s the kind of strength Roy’s talking about, and it’s- unsettling, because no one fucking compliments him unless they’re trying to _get_ something. If Roy is manipulating him, Ed is going to set him on fire, and see how he likes it. He narrows his eyes, and opens and closes his mouth a few times, because he’s the fucking champion of humiliating himself in front of others.  

After a while, what he comes up with is, “I- what? _What_?”

Roy takes a long drink of tea, in which Ed stares at him uncomprehendingly, because what the _fuck_?

“You heard me,” says Roy calmly, setting his mug on the floor next to the mattress. “So one of my customers yesterday said you put an entire village under a sleeping spell a month ago, is that true?”

And just like that, the tension has dissipated, and Ed is putting his tea aside for a second and ending up forgetting it’s there at all when Roy asks him about the stupidest fucking rumours he’s ever heard, and it’s just- it’s. Good. Its good.

He’s not stupid, he knows Roy is doing this to distract him from the dream, and a large part of him is fucking _insulted_ that Roy thinks he needs- _coddling_ or some shit. But there’s also another part of him that’s- thankful. Kind of, really obscenely fucking grateful, because Roy didn’t have to waste his whole night here talking to Ed about the ridiculous things people believe about him, and Roy probably knows that he doesn’t have to, and he is anyway.

So he doesn’t say anything about it at all, and they just sit there and talk, and Ed wonders how long they can keep this up for.

 

***

 

The first thing he’s going to need is blueprints.

Barring that, some kind of mapping spell, which shouldn’t be _too_ difficult- Ed has his journal, and all the shit he learned in Xing, and his own intellect, and it shouldn’t be too difficult.

It’s not the first time he’s planned a break-in, but it’s the first time he’s planned a break-in of such a high profile building, and it’s the first time he’s done the planning in the same room as someone actively trying to persuade him _not to_.

“Central _Library_ , Ed?” Roy is saying, pacing up and down the length of his workroom, looking dramatic and righteous, and Ed really does not care what he has to say, “Are you _out of your mind_?”

Ed grits his teeth, and turns the page of his journal with as much force as he can without ripping it. A few paces in front of him, Roy throws up his hands, the very picture of sanctimonious exasperation.

He is _still_ talking. “I know some things may _go over your head_ a little, but, _really_ -,”

“ _Excuse me_?” Ed says, low and dangerous, and Roy pauses. Instead of looking hesitant, as any smart person would when faced with Ed’s _tread carefully, asshole_ voice _,_ his expression is infuriatingly smug.

“This isn’t just any old library,” he says, “It’s _Central_. The guards alone, Ed-,”

“I fucking _know_ that, I’m not an _idiot_ ,” Ed snaps at him, slamming his journal down on the desk as he jumps up- if it’s a fight Roy is angling for then who the hell is Ed to dissuade him- and faces him. “I can _handle myself_. Or have you still not fucking realised that yet?”

Roy takes a step towards him, pointing behind them in the vague direction of the library. “I don’t care how important this information is, you’ll never get in and out of there without getting caught. And how are you supposed to help whoever it is you need to help if you’re locked in a damn _jail cell_?”

Without realising it, Ed has moved forwards as well, and now they’re standing directly in front of each other. Out of respect for his neighbours, Ed assumes, Roy is keeping his voice to a low, fierce hiss, but Ed has no such qualms about _disturbing the peace_ or whatever the fuck Roy wants to call it.

“Shut the fuck up,” he says savagely, the familiar burn beginning to build in his palms, “You don’t have a _fucking_ clue how important this information is, and even if you _did_ I wouldn’t give a shit what your opinion is, cause guess what? It’s not fucking _up_ to you. You’re _fucking_ lucky I even told you, you bastard-,”

“The only reason I ‘don’t have a fucking clue’ is because _you_ refuse to tell me anything! Believe me, I would _love_ to know, if only so I can _help_ you, but because I am actually, believe it or not, capable of displaying basic human decency, I haven’t pried into your private business,”

“Oh, yeah? Great job, Mustang, you’re sounding real fucking decent right now, not at all like a condescending dick, let me tell you-,”

It seems to register to them both at the same time: as they’ve argued they’ve moved closer and closer together, and now their noses are barely inches from each other- Ed’s chest is rising and falling and there is an angry flush across his cheeks, and Roy is looking down at him stony-faced but his eyes are _glittering_ -

If Ed was to push up on the balls of his feet, if Roy was to lean down just slightly- they’d be close enough to kiss.

They _are_ close enough to kiss.

All at once, the tense, boiling atmosphere has turned _charged_ suddenly, as though with lightning, and Ed doesn’t dare move a single fucking centimetre.

They stand there, Roy’s expression slowly fading from anger to something softer; his gaze slides down to Ed’s mouth and oh, god, the redness in Ed’s cheeks isn’t because of how pissed off he is anymore.

They stand there, and Ed’s heartbeat is hammering somewhere around the base of his throat, and he’s still annoyed; of course he’s still fucking annoyed, but he’s also- not. He’s also really, really not.

They stand there, and slowly, ever so fucking slowly, Roy’s hand comes up, skating along Ed’s arm as if giving him warning, as if giving him time to back away- he doesn’t back away, couldn’t even if he wanted to; he just stands there and does his utmost best not to lean into the touch- and hovers just next to his jaw, not quite brushing it. It is the most exquisite king of torture. He is hyperaware of the fucking _millimetres_ between them.

Ed watches Roy’s throat as he swallows, and flicks his gaze back up just as Roy does the same. Their eyes meet, and Roy lets out a sharp breath, almost involuntarily.

Finally, fucking finally, Roy moves his hand the rest of way; his palm slides up Ed’s jaw and he brushes away a strand of hair- Ed holds eye contact as Roy starts to lean down but his gaze slips to Roy’s mouth unbidden; their breath mingles in the tiny space between their lips.

Then Ed pushes up the rest of the way, closing those last few-

“Roy?”

 

***

 

It’s an unfamiliar voice, which is enough to make Ed tense- Roy freezes for a split second, lips a breath away from Ed’s, and there’s a sound like someone hammering on the door with their fists.

“Roy?” calls the voice again from outside, and the moment has passed. More than that, the moment has _died_. It has fucking perished.

Roy opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, then something flickers over his face and he takes a step back. His eyes cling to Ed’s for one more endless second, until he turns and walks out of the room, footsteps hurrying down the hall towards the front door.  
  
 If Ed wasn’t feeling like he was about to vibrate out of his fucking skin, he would probably appreciate the irony of the situation. He’s not sure what kind of irony, exactly, but there’s probably some there. There always is. It’s just another one of the many ways the universe shows him how much it enjoys his fucking suffering every damn day.

Roy is opening the door, and being met with a delighted cry. There is a sound like someone tossing a bag of laundry down a flight of stairs, and Ed assumes that Roy is being hugged right now. Briefly, he wonders if it’s Hawkeye again, but decides immediately after he’s had the thought that this is not her style at all.

He could just go back to his map-spelling and pretend that that whole- thing didn’t just happen. That’s what he’d _like_ to do, at any rate. Wait, no, that’s a fucking lie; what he _wants_ to do is invent a spell to rewind time, so he can go back and he and Roy can either a) not get into that situation in the first place or b) _finish what they fucking started._

“So, _Roy_ , tell me about this new houseguest of yours- oh!”

The voice, as it turns out, belongs to-

“Maes Hughes,” says Roy ruefully, standing in the doorway- déjà vu, thinks Ed, and avoids eye contact with Roy- gesturing to the man beside him, who beams and pushes his glasses up his nose, rocking forwards on his toes.

“You forgot to mention that I’m your best friend, your love counsellor, magic advisor, _matchmaker_ -,”

“You’ve never done magic in your life, Maes,” says Roy, rolling his eyes in a familiar way,  “and you only got one thing right and you didn’t even get _that_ one hundred percent. Riza will kill you when she finds out you’ve been claiming to be my only best friend. Do you want some tea?”

Maes makes a wounded sound, clutching dramatically at his chest, and twists round to grin amicably at Ed. There’s something- something about him that Ed can’t quite place. “Riza would never kill me, she would never do anything to deliberately make you sad. Yes! Tea! Onwards to your kitchen! By the way, Roy,” he says, breezing past Roy and pausing in the kitchen doorway, “you still haven’t introduced your new friend.”  
 He raises his eyebrows suggestively, and from where Ed is standing behind them both he can’t see Roy’s expression, but he _can_ see the way Roy stiffens just slightly. And Ed doesn’t…really know what to think of that.

“This is Edward Elric, a travelling mage. He’s here for research. Ed, you’ve met Maes now, I apologise in advance for his behaviour; he is a child.”

“You say that as if you’re not just as bad,” says Maes cheerfully, and heads straight for the kettle without having to ask. Roy sighs and goes to lean in his usual spot against the island counter, and Ed loiters awkwardly in the doorway for a grand total of five breaths before he decided _fuck it; I’ll wing it_ and sits at the table.

They’re not talking about it, then. Good. The less confrontations, the better, and it’s not like Ed- _cares_ -

Jesus, he used to be _good_ at lying to himself. At least back then he could _try_ and sound convincing; this is a fucking train wreck already and he’s not even speaking _out loud_.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Roy is asking, accepting some tea from Maes- Ed doesn’t know how he can just keep drinking it, knocking it back like that. It’s not half as fucking effective as coffee; at least coffee _wakes you up_. Tea just makes you more tired. It’s an ineffective use of caffeine.

Maes shrugs, moving to the table and settling himself opposite Ed, pushing a mug in his direction, too. “Do I need a reason to come and see my second-best friend?”

“You always need a reason,” Roy tells him, and then, “ _Second_ -best? If you were planning on asking me for a favour, don’t bother. You don’t deserve anything after that insult.”

Maes just grins up at Roy and says, “No offence, but Riza is far more terrifying than you will ever be, so I think you’re stuck with the title of second-best for the time being. Also, I resent the implication that I only ever come here to ask you for things. Can’t a man just pop in to say hi without being persecuted for it?”

“I’m sure you can somewhere in the world,” says Roy dryly, and shakes his head. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something, anyway. Riza dropped in the day before yesterday to tell u- me about these murders—I haven’t heard anything apart from that and from what Riza told me, that’s just strange. A mass murder? Even in a city as big as this one, you’d expect to hear _rumours_ , at least, right?”

Maes’ eyes seem to light up, just for a fraction of a second, before he leans across the table and starts talking to Roy in a hushed, excited voice, but Ed isn’t paying attention to what he’s saying. In that brief moment, he realised what felt so off about the man- he was emanating aura like no one’s fucking business. But that wasn’t what threw Ed- it was the fact that he was _masking_ it.

_You’ve never done magic in your life, Maes._

The traces of energy that Hughes is giving out are very strong, but somehow faint, too. Dulled down. Faded, almost. It’s as if Ed’s seeing the silver glow through several sheets of dirty glass: it’s still there, and he can still tell that it has a strong signal, it’s just- harder to make it out.

Masking.

Not many magicians can do it, and if Roy knows Hughes as well as he seems to, maybe it’s not a _conscious_ effort. Ed’s heard of masking happening involuntarily, where the magician in question has magical potential that just hasn’t been unlocked yet. Their aura gives off the same sense as someone masking theirs, but they don’t have the magical potential tattoos that mark them as able to wield energy, and they can’t control the aura.

Ed sits back in his chair, studying the faded silver light as it ebbs and flows, and eventually Maes must notice because he darts Ed a curious look in the middle of the conversation. Shit, maybe he doesn’t _know_. After all, not many people are as magic-sensitive as Ed is; maybe Hughes just straight-up has no idea that he has this fairly impressive aura.

How magic-sensitive is Roy? Ed doesn’t know. Maybe he should ask him. Maybe he should tell him. Maybe…maybe he should avoid Roy for the rest of his fucking life, actually, because there is no point in trying to have a serious fucking talk about magic with him when all Ed’s going to be thinking about is the _thing_.

He can’t believe he almost fucking kissed Roy.

Especially now that he’s kind of-sort of making progress. And by kind of-sort of he means that he’s got…a vague idea of how to perform the mapping spell, and all he needs to do now is to gather materials. And the spell will be the difficult part, probably. Ed’s broken in to tons of places in the last seven years; that shit’ll be a piece of cake. Easy as breathing. Easy as magic.  

Across the table, Maes pulls a pocketwatch out of his jacket and glacnes at it; his eyes widen comically and he jumps to his feet.

“Oh, gods, I’m meant to be meeting Gracia for lunch in the old market-,” He looks up at Roy with a puppy-ish expression, to which Roy just raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Roy, my best friend, we can continue this conversation at a time when my life isn’t in danger.” Maes turns to Ed, as he walks backwards out of the kitchen towards the front door, Roy shepherding him there:  
“Ed, lovely to meet you, I hope we get to see each other again, but to be honest our chances are slim since I have a feeling Roy is planning on stealing you away all for himself- alright, alright! I’m going! Don’t snap your fingers at me, Roy, you know your little party trick doesn’t scare- _Roy if you set my coat on fire, so help me-,_ ”

Ed ducks into the workroom as Roy shoos Hughes out of the door, throwing himself into the chair and spreading his notes out resolutely. He needs…a list. Yeah, a list is a good start; he’ll start making a list of all the things he needs for this spell.

He flips to a fresh page, loads his quill with ink, and stops. Sighs. He can’t- fucking _concentrate_. Maybe it’s the lighting, and dim and atmospheric and shit. He leans over the desk and cracks the curtain obscuring the main window; if he cranes his neck he can see the street.

And in the street, coming towards the house, are a group of very familiar people.

_Shitfuck._

Roy interrupts his staring-avidly-out-of-the-window activities by appearing very suddenly right next to him and making him jump the _fuck out of his skin_.

“Jesus-!” he says, hand flying to the knife at his belt before he remembers that stabbing your host is pretty bad form for a houseguest, and Roy takes a measured step back.

“Sorry,” he says, and his expression is grave. “Listen, just- Maes said some things and, considering your whole-,” he gestures to the notes spread over the desk- _the_ desk, now; not ‘Roy’s’, Ed has commandeered it for today and the foreseeable future; it might as well be communal- “ _plan_ , I think you should know; there’s been-,”

“-another murder?” Ed finishes for him, and nods, tilting his head to indicate where he’d been looking out of the window. “Yeah, I figured.”

“How?” Roy asks him.

Any other time Ed would _relish_ the chance to use Roy’s patented eyebrow-raise, but this time he can’t find any enjoyment in it. “Because there’s a group of armed Royal Guard members marching up the fucking street, and as Hawkeye said, I’m under suspicion.”

Just as Ed finishes, there’s a trilling bell-like note that somehow manages to sound vaguely ominous despite the cutesy ringing charm of it. Maybe it’s just the fact that the both of them know whose presence at the driveway it’s announcing.

In the time it takes for the bell to ring once, Roy has thrown up all his walls and shuttered himself inside his mask. It’s a work of art, except Ed isn’t really in the right kind of mood to appreciate it right now.

“Clear up all your notes and hide the journal in the hollow bookcase,” says Roy, talking fast. _Hollow bookcase?_ What the _fuck_? “You just press the sides until it clicks and it’ll open. I’ll let them in. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“ _Stupid_?” Ed demands, but he’s already moving, packing up his papers and stuffing them into the journal, snapping the binding shut. Roy is out of the workroom before he’s even gotten out of his chair.

The bookcase is standing next to the desk, a medium-sized, plain-looking wooden thing with shelves that are spilling with books of every shape and size, just like every other bookcase in Roy’s house. Ed presses his hands on either side of it, feels something press inwards; theres a small click and the right hand side swings open revealing a pretty neat hiding place.

“Shit,” Ed mutters, “I should get me one of these. But, like, travel-sized.”

He stuffs the journal inside and has just gotten the secret door clicked back into place when there’s a banging at the door.

Roy opens it, and greets the Royal Guard smoothly and without inflection in his voice.

Ed snatches the nearest book he can find- some kind of biography of a famous magical researcher from Aerugo- and sprawls into the chair as the sound of heavy footsteps echo through the hall.

He swallows, tugs on his gloves to make sure they're securely in place, and allows himself a small, sharp grin. If there's one thing Ed loves more than magic, it’s fucking with the Royal Guard. He’s ‘under suspicion’ _all the fucking time_ , and honestly? This is nothing new.

“Edward Elric?” He turns in his chair, raising his eyebrows lazily at the man standing stiffly in the doorway. Roy is just visible behind him, looking unconcerned.

“That’s me,” says Ed, and snaps the book shut, setting it down on the desk. “Did you need something?” The Royal Guard member stands up a little straighter. Ed compensates by slouching some more.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions. Regarding the recent spree of serial murders across the city.”

 

It’s probably meant to be a really dramatic line or some shit, but it’s ruined by Roy yawning in the background. By some strange working of fate, Ed manages to keep the smirk off his face.  
God, Roy is _really_ getting to him. All this fucking smirking that he’s going to have to unlearn when he leaves. Or- don’t think about that. _Don’t_ think about that.

He stands up, does his best innocent expression, and walks over to the guard.

All he has to do now is suffer through an hour of the same old questions with this guy, and then- and _then_ \- he can get back to what he’s supposed to be doing: breaking into Central city’s largest and most famous library in order to get his little brother back.

 

 


	5. penumbra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riza saves the day, and Roy and Ed have some quality bonding time out on the town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WAHEY HERE IT IS this chapter is Late i am so sorry i was being stressed about and then receiving my GCSE results (i did well!!!!!!!! alright alright alright) but now it is done !!!!! and it is like 10k so please enjoy it i hope the length makes up for how late it is lmao  
> also everyone drinks so much tea in this fic why do they drink so much tea  
> also also, please tell me abt any mistakes, i was up until 5am for 3 nights in a row getting this finished but in retrospect getting a good amount of sleep would probably have been the wiser thing to do ???? additionally in chapter 4 there was an Error where i missed out like a whole bunch and left my TK markers in its place, which i just went back and fixed,, it was only like a sentence but it is there is u wanna reread or smth
> 
> okay long notes are over, enjoy th chapter and i will be back with more soon!!!!!

Maes swirls the tea in his cup and pulls his legs up to sit with them crossed on the chair. “I’m sure he’ll be just fine,” he says, waving a hand easily as he takes a sip. 

Roy pulls the pan from the stove—Maes had turned up with a bundle full of eggs and salted meat, and Roy had almost had a heart attack when he’d interrupted his pacing by bursting through the front door declaring that Gracia was out with Elysia and he was in dire need of company—closing his hand into a slow fist to quench the flames, and shoots Maes a glare.

“He was arrested by the  _ Royal Guard _ ,” he says, “and you’re ‘sure he’ll be fine’. Really, Maes?”

Maes just grins in that obnoxious way of his, and makes a placating gesture with one hand. “Riza’s a Royal Guard,” he points out, “I’m sure she’d be extremely offended at the implication that every single one of ‘em is evil.”

“You and I both know that Riza would agree with me,” says Roy, “She hates the whole mentality as much as any of us.”

Maes shrugs, draining his cup. His hand rests on the tabletop, tapping a frantic beat on the polished surface that seems incongruous with his languid posture. He looks hopefully at Roy’s pan of food. “You have a point there. Hey, at least she’ll be able to look after your mage for you. Or is she on patrol today?”

“He’s not ‘my mage’; stop  _ saying  _ that. But I’m fairly certain she’s at the Residence today, so hopefully she’ll be able to run some kind of damage control.” He shakes his head, setting the pan on the counter and reaching distractedly for a couple of plates. Maes eyes him in amusement. “At the very least he probably won’t attack her, too. Ed’s smarter than that.”

Roy  _ hopes  _ Ed’s smarter than that. Riza certainly seemed to make an impression on him last time, but—honestly, with the way he’d been when they carted him off in irons, anything could happen. Which is what’s worrying him. 

Roy’s stomach is flipping over and over; his head is beginning to ache. He abandons the plates in favour of reaching for the overflowing plants competing for a meagre supply of sunlight on the windowsill, pulling a leaf from one of them and popping it into his mouth, chewing.    
The taste is bitter and unpleasant on his tongue, but it’s easily worth the easing of the pressure building in his temples; he fights down a sigh of relief. The herbalist down the road, Rose, has been giving him knowing glances and plants with painkilling properties on a discount for weeks now.

First her, now Maes. Roy isn’t naïve enough to buy the man’s story about ‘needing company’. Everything that’s been happening recently- the murders, the uptick in anti-mage behaviour, Hawkeye Senior’s sudden decline in health- has been wearing on Roy, and apparently it  _ shows _ . Which is really the most worrying part of all. 

Maes is chuckling, leaning back in his chair to direct a strained grin at the ceiling. “I still wish I’d been here to see that. What did they even say to him to get him that riled up?”

“I have no idea what they said to him; he was in the other room and dearly though I would have loved to eavesdrop, they had someone standing guard outside the door.” He’d been standing there for over an hour, leaning casually against a wall and playing who-has-the-best-poker-face with that damn guard the whole time. When the chaos started, Roy was faintly pleased to note that the guard had fumbled their cool demeanour immediately and switched to panic, while even as Roy’s one recurring thought had been,  _ oh, shit _ , he’d kept his cool. It’s the only thing he’s good at. That, and stress-cooking.    
“There was just…a lot of shouting. Some crashes. And then before I knew it there were two unconscious guards in my workroom and Ed was being dragged off to the cells kicking and screaming.”

_ Literally _ kicking and screaming. It had certainly been something to behold, in a half shocked, half awed way. Roy finishes scraping food onto plates and moves to the table, handing one to Maes and setting the other down; he doesn’t take a seat. If he doesn’t keep moving—he’s been pacing round and round the house since the Guards left and took Ed with them, and now he’s resorted to cooking just so he has something to with his hands—he’ll do something drastic, and doing something drastic at this point will do nothing but make the situation worse.

His palms feel hot. Distantly, Roy remembers Riza’s father telling him that the hands- specifically the palms and fingertips- are the natural conduit for the magic residing in a sorcerer’s body. When Roy had been younger sparks used to fly from them before he learned to control it, it was the same for most kids in school with an affinity.

Not that he knows that much about the kids in school- he was only there for a few years before his mother died and he moved away. Still, the lessons about magic have stuck with him; possibly the only things that have.

He has his own suspicions about why Ed wears gloves constantly. Some of the stories about the scarily powerful mage who never shows his hands—they’re permanently stained with blood; he has claws; he has terrible scars—are too obviously just that: stories. (Although something about Ed  _ does  _ seem to make him want to believe the wildest rumours; it’s his air of mystery, the look he gets sometimes that says he’s seen things with those startling eyes of his that would make a lesser person quit).

But there are other rumours that whisper about magical lore, about ancient arrays for control and caging; and every mage knows that magic in flux is only as volatile as your emotions…

Everything is  _ changing _ , and it’s not in Roy’s nature to feel uneasy about that-- he’s a magic user. He lives and breathes change; the magic at his fingertips is governed by rules that no one seems to know or understand; it’s intuitive, it’s as unthinking as a distant roar of thunder or the curved wing of a bird throwing itself from a cliff face: change doesn’t scare him. Shouldn’t, anyway. 

But Ed’s arrival on top of the political tension spreading throughout the country like a disease with its roots sunk deep into this archaic city is causing him no small amount of grief, and-

“Sounds pretty crazy,” says Maes. He’s still drumming on the tabletop, a nervous tic in a man that one does not usually associate with nervous tics. Roy looks at his friend— _ really  _ looks at him, because it hasn’t been that long since he saw him last but it’s been weeks since he last  _ saw  _ him, and frowns.

“Maes,” he says, “are you alright?”

Later, as Roy is marched up through the gates of the Royal Residence—the sigils set into the flagstones at the entrance glow bright silver when he sets foot on them, reacting to his magic; he can’t help but wonder how brightly they must’ve shone for Ed—he is still thinking about it.

The slight stiffening of Maes’ shoulders before he looked up, smile pasted across his face, and said  _ Of course I am, aren’t I always?  _ And then Roy hadn’t really had much time to tell him to drop the act (there’s no point in Maes lying to him and the man knows it; kind calls to kind and Roy has always been excellent at untruths) and tell him what was going on, because for the second time that day the alarms were going off as the Royal Guard pounded their way up to his front door.

There is a one armoured man on either side of him, now. Banners draped from the gates snap above them, the deep blue background of the royal lion symbol set strikingly against the paler blue of the cloud-streaked sky.

Roy keeps his head high and walks confidently, as if the guards don’t exist, as if he is striding in 

through these gates of his own volition, setting silver light ablaze around his feet with every step towards the main entrance.

Inside, his mind works furiously: Hawkeye Flame Alchemy is officially licensed and sanctioned by the king; Roy has his papers bearing the king’s seal and besides, he’s fairly well-known even in a city as large as this. So why the hell are the guards wrenching him to a stop he just about manages to make look graceful rather than rough and stumbling, pulling his arms before him and closing heavy iron handcuffs around his wrists?

The shock of the iron is enough to make him falter; he recovers quickly, but his mind is still reeling. Iron dulls magic, everyone knows it, the king especially; the cold metal pressing into his wrists is clamping down on his  _ power _ , too, and it is  _ horrifying _ .

“I appreciate your hospitality, gentlemen,” Roy says drily, and one of the guards sneers but the other looks away as if ashamed. Ah, thinks Roy, he can use that. “Am I entitled to know why you’ve clapped me in irons, or is that classified?”

He reaches for his magic, panic twisting and coiling in his gut. It doesn’t rise to meet him. It is suppressed, pushed back, cut away from him as if the iron is a wall standing between them, impenetrable and unfeeling.

“We’ve had one mage causing trouble today,” says the sneering guard. “Your kind are dangerous. Fucking scum.”

He spits on the ground. Roy arches an eyebrow, regarding him coolly even as he fights again and again to scramble back some small shard of control over his magic;  _ nothing _ . The iron is choking him, binding him. It is an ache, a hole, a vacuum, a sharp, biting sense of  _ missing  _ wrapping around him like quicksand, and he  _ hates  _ it.

The other guard clears his throat. He’s young, white-faced and nervous. Probably new.

“Riza Hawkeye,” Roy says, as the sneering guard jabs him in the back with the pommel of his sword to get him to start moving, speaking directly to the anxious-looking guard on his other side.

The guard startles. “Sir Hawkeye?”

“She told me she was on residence duty today. I’d like a word with her, one friend to another, about this business. I’m sure she won’t mind telling me why I’ve been brought here under duress.”

“You’re  _ friends _ with--,”

“Shut the fuck up,” snarls Sneering Guard, and beneath the layers of terror and missing and aching ripping tearing hole in his chest where his magic used to be, Roy feels the anger rise hot and fast. “He’s trying to mess with us. Fucking mages never learn. You think you’re so superior—how superior do you feel when all it takes is a little  _ iron _ and you’re--,”

Roy never finds out what he is after a little iron, because there is someone blocking the doorway and the sun bursts out from behind a cloud for the first time in days, or maybe that’s just Roy’s emotions upon seeing  _ Riza _ …

The two guards stop in their tracks. She stands there, polished armour, cold gaze, perfectly poised. All Riza has to do is look at them. She does not blink.

“Uh- Sir Hawkeye, you- uh, we have been intrusted to escort this-  _ mage  _ to the holding cells-,” Sneering Guard pronounces the word  _ mage  _ with the same tone as if he’s just eaten something incredibly repulsive and disgusting and but can’t spit it out because he is in polite company and therefore must pretend to be enjoying it but isn’t doing a very good job. At all.

“Because his presence has been politely requested to aid in the verification of the young man in custody’s story, yes, I am aware.” Her eyes are hard as flint and more unforgiving. Roy communicates to her through the power of best friend telepathy that he is so,  _ so  _ fucking relieved to see her. She acknowledge this by settling her eyes on Roy, whereupon they soften- just a little, her icy expression replaced by one that clearly reads,  _ Roy, what have you gotten yourself into  _ this  _ time, you reckless fool? _

Roy blinks once. It means  _ don’t look at me, blame the short blond kid in your holding cells, he started this.  _ Speaking of the short blond kid in the holding cells- he’s here to bail Ed out of prison? This is news to Roy. Immediately he begins running through every possible cover story that Ed could’ve given in order of likelihood, and calculating which details he could be asked about and whether it would be more or less detrimental to Ed’s case to lie about them.

“Then you are also aware that we are under order from the king himself!” shouts Sneering Guard, drawing himself up to his full- and uninspiring- height. At least Ed makes up for his stature by being a thousand times more dangerous and ready to fight to the death than the person he’s facing down. Riza lifts a single eyebrow, unimpressed. Sneering Guard backs down immediately. It’s the first smart choice he’s made since he marched Roy out of his house an hour ago.

The nervous-looking guard next to him is staring at Riza with a glazed-over expression of mixed awe and terror on his face. Riza is unfazed; by now, she’s used to it.

“Remove the shackles,” she says in clipped tones. Very, very casually, she sweeps a hand over her hip, just lightly running her fingers over the sword at her side. Nervous-looking guard makes a noise that could be most closely associated with a strangled yelp, and hops to.

_ Thank you, Riza _ .

He feels every vibration of the metal, every click of the key turning in the handcuffs. The final  _ snick _ as the tumblers fall into place and the lock breaks open is as loud and present to Roy as the snap of a branch breaking in a dark wood, a match flaring in a silent room, the creak of a stair in the middle of the night.

 

And then, in the space between one breath and the next, Riza’s eyes a warm breeze on him, the handcuffs fall away, and his power comes rushing back in like the tide filling the shoreline. 

He shakes out his wrists, inclines his head to the nervous looking guard, ignores Sneering Guard, and inside he closes his eyes and breathes a sigh of deep, deep relief.    
The magic comes to him when he reaches for it, rising to his gentle questing. His fingertips tingle as energy flows through them; he is the circle, completing the array, and he is the intent behind the array itself. He is the master and the subject, in control and equally controlled-- his magic is the only thing he will ever, ever allow to move him. 

 

“I will escort our guest from here,” says Hawkeye, her tone cutting off any possible protestations before they’re formed. nervous -looking guard shoots her an adoring look, bows, and scurries off. Sneering Guard hesitates for one brief, admittedly brave moment, and then Hawkeye turns to look at him and he slinks away, red-faced. 

Roy offers Riza a charming smile. 

“Thank you,” he says, “I see your reputation proceeds you here.”

She turns her unimpressed stare on him, and he resists the urge to shrink away. “Roy, what the hell have you done?” she asks, and he raises his hands:

“I swear to you, I haven’t done  _ anything _ . Ed got himself arrested and an hour later I’m being marched after him. I don’t know what I’m even doing here.”

Riza motions him to follow her through the entrance-- away from the watching eyes of a few other patrolling guards, who have gathered to watch the legendary Hawk’s Eye converse with a mage. 

“They want you for questioning,” she says, and Roy detects the low notes in her voice: she’s worried. Really worried. “Scheska told me. Frank Archer pulled her out of the filing room to take notes.”

“Frank Archer,” repeats Roy, his face impassive. It doesn’t fool Riza. Why on earth did he ever think it would?

They’re walking through the atrium now, guards standing to attention as Riza passes. The walls are decked in velvet drapery, gold and royal blue; the floor is hard stone and their footsteps echo as they walk through, towards the door at the end of the long hall that Roy presumes leads to the cells. 

“That’s right,” she says. “They’ve been questioning your friend for about an hour now and he hasn’t given them anything. Archer didn’t want to call you in, but he doesn’t exactly have a choice. There’s pressure from the king.”

The  _ king _ ? Shit, this is bad. He doesn’t ask how Riza knows all this. When she took the job as a knight, she did it to protect the things she cares about, and it’s granted her firsthand access to information that they otherwise may not have been able to find in the back alleys and broker-stalls of Central. 

“He isn’t my friend,” Roy says. She just looks at him, face unchanged. He grinds his teeth. “Look, this won’t be a problem. If they want information, I’ll tell them what Ed told me. It’ll be over soon.”

“And if they want more than information?”

Her eyes are clear and urgent and as familiar to him as magic is. She is one third of their lifelong trio, and they’ve been friends since Roy was a child.  He doesn’t have an answer for her that he wants to say out loud, and he doesn’t have to. She already knows. 

Something in her face shifts as she resigns herself to his choice. “You know I’ll have your back whatever happens,” she says. It’s a promise that they made years before, and it’s one that they will never, ever break. 

“I know,” he says. She nods to him, once, eyes serious, and gestures through the doorway before them, a heavy wooden thing banded in iron. It makes Roy fight a shudder, the close proximity to more of the metal. 

“Follow the steps downwards,” she says, rapping twice on the door; there are footsteps from behind it and another guard pushes it open, saluting Riza when he sees her. 

“Thank you,” he says to her, and means it. She nods briskly, and turns, steps clicking away as she walks back across the shining atrium floor, but Roy caught the look in her eyes before she left, and something like relief settles in his stomach. He forgets, sometimes, how fucking lucky he is to have people like Riza-- and Maes-- on his side, guarding his back. 

And then he nods to the guard holding the door, and makes his way down the flight of stairs into the waiting darkness below.

 

* * *

 

They are sitting in a claustrophobic, dank cell in the depths of the courthouse connected to the royal residence. Roy thinks about the long, winding hallways, and wonders if going up and down all those flights of stairs to get here was a ploy to disorientate him and force him to lose his way. If so, they must think he’s much, much stupider than he is. While it’s sort of bruising to his pride, he supposes he can use it, as long as they continue to underestimate him.

Frank Archer, one of the king’s underlings, is the man interviewing him. Roy has crossed him a couple of times. Archer seems to see him as some kind of competition. It’s laughable, and also a little pathetic, but at the same time Roy knows there’s more to Archer than just his ambition. He’s seen him out on patrol: the man is cruel, and takes vindictive pleasure in kicking people while they’re down. He is exactly the kind of person Roy despises the most.  

Three candles in metal brackets are set around the room: two of them on the left and right hand wall respectively, and the third set above the door. The far wall is bare, save for the iron links set into the stone, where a prisoner might be chained.

When they’d sat down, Roy had made a remark about the décor, and Archer had momentarily looked like he wanted to hit him. It had been an enjoyable experience.

Presently, Roy is resisting the urge to mess with the candles, as revenge for having his magic stripped from him for those brief and endless minutes; part of him thinks it would be hilarious and well worth it, but the other part is concerned about looking petty.

He’s Roy Mustang, damn it, he can’t afford to look petty in front of a slimy, power hungry snake like Frank Archer.

“You’re here to vouch for the credibility and character of this man?” Archer says, speaking in a dry, bored tone, as if these proceedings are barely worth his time and he has a thousand better things to be doing with his time. Roy knows the tone well. He uses it himself very often.

Not narrowing his eyes is a struggle.

“Yes,” he says, and his voice is light and calm and just a little cool. Not quite icy, but still—getting there. Glancing off it and reminding the man standing in front of him that he is utterly, easily capable of reducing him to nothing with a thought. That it’s really very gracious of him to be sitting here right now, languid and relaxed even in this uncomfortable rough-hewn chair.

Archer looks away—a victory for Roy—and gestures carelessly to Ed, who is positioned on the opposite side of the room with the table and chairs between him and the door. He hadn’t had time to put on his cloak before he was dragged off, hadn’t had time to do anything except shout and swear and spit curses like fire, and he’s standing there in a long sleeved black shirt and his gloves, the glint of metal just visible where one sleeve has ridden up slightly.

Even divested of all weaponry, shackled, and in the grip of three guards bristling with weapons of their own, Ed is a hissing, bubbling well of fury. He doesn’t seem to notice the handcuffs dulling his magic, although it has to feel like a sucker punch to the gut, for a creature like Ed to be so suddenly stripped of his magic, the most natural and instinctual force in the world. If it was bad for Roy, it is ten times worse for Ed.

Ed, who doesn’t seem to give a shit about the guards, either; his eyes are fixed on either Roy or Archer, conducting the interview with all the competence of an untrained toddler and doing his best—nothing to write home about, incidentally—to cover it up by affecting indifference.

Ed’s pupils are burning coals. The air around him might as well be shimmering with heat.

“Very well,” says Archer, and gestures broadly with one lazy hand. “State your name and occupation for the record.” The scribe in the corner gives a start, and gathers up her quill, pushing her glasses up her nose. This must be Scheska, Riza’s friend who told her about Archer. Roy owes her one. The look in her eyes as she glances up at the interviewer and back down at her parchment again suggests to Roy that the man is  _ not  _ well-liked amongst the staff here, and he is very glad to note it.

“ Flame Sorcerer Roy Mustang,” says Roy. Ed rolls his eyes, muttering under his breath: Roy catches the words  _ pretentious  _ and  _ fuck _ . One of the guards holding him makes a movement as if to cuff him with their gauntlet-clad glove and Ed whips his head and stops them with a single golden glare. The moment is over as quickly as it begun, but there is a frozen kind of tension lingering in the air when Ed goes back to staring hatefully at the arrays etched into his manacles.  

“And you,” says Archer, turning sharp eyes on Ed, who looks up to snort loudly and disdainfully. Somehow he manages to inject the single sound with more than enough scorn to decimate a medium-sized country with little effort; Roy doesn’t like to imagine what’s going through Archer’s head.  _ Please cooperate, Ed,  _ he thinks, knowing that it is a futile and half-hearted prayer, but trying anyway;  _ you know you’ll just make it worse if you rile him up. _

_ “ _ Your  _ name _ for the  _ record _ ,” says Archer. Roy watches his fists clench briefly, and allows himself the satisfaction of knowing that for all the medals and ribbons pinned over the man’s royal guard uniform—of which there are many—no amount of authority is going to stop Ed from antagonising the hell out of him.

“Fuck you,” shoots back Ed, which is, admittedly, better than some of the other responses he could’ve given, but still not ideal.

Roy sighs. Ed catches it, and his eyes widen; he surges forwards only to be yanked back by three guards: “What the fuck are you  _ sighing  _ about, bastard, I don’t see  _ you  _ doing anything to help the fuckin’ situation—and aren’t you supposed to be  _ helping  _ me? Shit, you’re just  _ sitting  _ there like a fucking--,”

Roy leans back in his chair. In the corner, Scheska is scribbling so fast her hand is a blur, ink scattering her face like freckles, dark hair falling over one shoulder as she pushes her glasses up her nose with one hand; she looks like she’s having the time of her life. This must be the best entertainment she’s had in months, trapped in this dreary castle—oh, it’s grand on the outside, but the inside is all cold stone and not nearly enough rugs— working in the filing room and taking notes for assholes like Archer.

“You make it rather difficult for me to help you when you won’t even give your  _ name _ , you know,” he says. Ed goes to throw up his hands, realises he can’t, and glares savagely at Roy instead, who wonders if it’s crossing the line from pathetic to downright contemptible that he feels a thrill just at the fact of Ed turning his much-sought-after attention to him, even if it is in the form of a scorching glare. Probably it is. Probably Roy needs to get a hobby.

“Don’t fucking blame it on  _ me _ , you--,” here, Ed uses a word in a guttural language that Roy vaguely recognises as Xerxian, the ancient language of magic that hasn’t been used in centuries and still elicits a shiver at the top of his spine in response to the harsh syllables; it doesn’t take a linguist to know that Ed just said something indescribably filthy. “You have  _ no _ fucking excuse. You’re not even fucking handcuffed, asshole; I’m  _ perfectly  _ within my rights to be mad about this--,”

Fair enough, the handcuffs  _ are  _ awful. But still. “You attacked a guard,” Roy points out, “whereas  _ I  _ have done nothing wrong.”

Ed scoffs again, tossing his hair out of his face—strands have come loose from all the struggling around he’s been doing; Roy never fully appreciated how  _ much  _ Ed moves, he keeps trying to pace or step forwards or make wide gestures and being wrenched back by his guards, who are more or less terrified of him. Several times Ed breaks off mid-sentence to bite at their hands before carrying on seamlessly. Roy is at times both in awe of and baffled by him.

“ _ Nothing wrong _ , my ass,” Ed says, “’sides, I punched the guy for a good fuckin’ reason; it’s not my fault he couldn’t take it--,”

“You screamed  _ I’ll kill you, motherfucker _ , and jumped on him,” says Roy, “I  _ heard  _ you through the  _ wall _ .”

“You can’t fuckin’ prove it,” says Ed, trying to flip him off but growling in annoyance when his cuffs prevent him from doing so, “you can’t see through walls. You don’t  _ know _ .”

“I don’t see you denying it, though,” says Roy.

“ _ Fuck you, I’m denying it right no--, _ ”

Archer stands up sharply, pushing his chair out with a screech as the legs drag across the stone floor; he slams his hands on the table.

Roy and Ed both turn to look at him. Roy raises an eyebrow, unruffled. Ed’s cheeks are red, his hair beyond dishevelled, and yet he still manages to give Archer the most withering glare Roy has ever seen, except perhaps on his own face.

“ _ What _ ,” says Ed, irritated at the interruption and eager to get back to telling Roy creative ways to go fuck himself.

“Yes?” says Roy with calm contempt, perfectly and unflappably at ease in this cramped dark room and this uncomfortable chair, surrounded by guards with their deadly weapons drawn, arguing back and forth with the furious young mage at his side.

 

He can imagine how infuriating it is to Archer, his inability to scare them; Roy because he has perfected the art of lethal self-control, Ed because he simply does not give a fuck. He has more important things to worry about.

 

Roy knows that  _ this _ barely even registers on Ed’s scale of significance. A minor distraction from what matters, that’s all. And Roy can’t fault him for that, not really, even when it leaves him as the one who has to smooth everything down and stop it from collapsing into pieces in his hands when Archer is pushed too far and orders them both to be executed.

Although, actually, if that were to happen Ed would probably be the one to deal with that particular situation. Roy can’t imagine him having any patience for being executed. He’d probably escape in some improbable and dramatic way and leave Roy to sprint after him before the window of opportunity passed.

Archer’s eye twitches almost imperceptibly. Inwardly, Roy smiles.

“I will ask,” says Archer, and his voice is annoyingly controlled and icy. “Once more. State. Your. Name.”

Roy flicks his eyes to Ed’s.  _ Now is not the time to start another screaming match _ .

Ed grinds his teeth.  _ I know, damn it. _

“….Edward Elric,” he says finally. The guards, who had been tense as coiled springs next to him, relax noticeably.

Archer remains standing. “Good,” he says softly. Slowly, he moves around the table until he comes to a stop in front of Ed, who locks eye contact with him, and glares. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it.”

Behind Archer, Roy stares hard at Ed, attempting to impart some kind of telepathic signal to him:  _ don’t rise to the bait _ . But Ed doesn’t even look at him. His eyes are fixed on Archer, tension rising around them like humidity gathering before a storm. Roy wants to close his eyes against what’s coming; he can see it so clearly mapped out in front of him, the future unfolding:

Ed will say something insulting, Archer won’t back down and instead will wind him tighter and tighter until he snaps and does something drastic like attack him, and then Archer will have an excuse to throw Ed in the dungeons for the rest of his life and get rid of the strange sorcerer causing trouble around the city.

Shit, shit, shit. Ed’s hands, still manacled, curl into fists. Roy winces inwardly.

And then Ed’s posture changes.

The tension- dissipates. He shakes back his hair, tils his chin, and grins. Right at Archer. An innocent, wicked, shit-eating grin.

“I guess not,” he agrees, rolling his shoulders back into a casual pose, as if they’re just having an amicable chat on the street. As if Roy hasn’t seen Ed surreptitiously reach for weapons and check for exit points at any contact with a stranger. “Yeah, I’m Ed Elric. Travelling mage. Don’t know anything ‘bout the murders and shit that’s been going on; I only just got here. Sorry.”

It’s the most insincere apology that Roy’s ever heard, and equally he’s not entirely sure what in the name of Paracelsus Ed thinks he’s doing, but—Archer can’t do anything with this. His shoulders have tightened; he’s taken aback.

“So you maintain your non-involvement with the case,” sneers Archer—this is becoming a common trait amongst slimy members of the Royal Guard, Roy is fast discovering-- “Tell me, where did you hear about these murders? The information has not been made available to the public.”

Ed raises his eyebrows, like he’s shocked by this but not really at all. “Well, damn, I heard it in a bar,” he says, “Real shady place. Lots of shady lookin’ people. You know how the rumour mill is.”

The scribe in the corner lets out a snort of laughter and covers it up with a cough when archer turns his head to give her a sharp look. Roy is glad he’s not the only one getting entertainment out of this.

Roy feels rather than sees the disbelieving look Arches gives Ed. Ed just grins up at him, looking for all purposes like an innocent, well-meaning young man, if not for the edge of teeth he flashes. All at once, Roy remembers the rumours he’s heard about Ed in a fight, winning easily against impossible odds; magic or no, he is probably the most dangerous person in this room and Archer knows it.

And that revelation alone probably explains why Archer chose the safest option once he realised he wasn’t getting anything out of Ed, and had the guards escort him from the room while he moved on to questioning Roy instead. A reasonably smart decision. It’s not as if Roy’s going to tell him anything, either, though. He just repeats exactly what Ed told him about his travelling mage life, excluding all the parts that could possibly be useful to Archer or anyone else under the king’s thumb. Archer asks him where Ed was during the times of the murders. Roy tells the truth: he’d been at Roy’s house. Archer insinuates that Roy is biased and that his word isn’t good enough. Roy names Riza and Maes as having seen Ed, too. Archer attacks, Roy parries with ease and panache, and eventually Archer is staring at him across the table with his eyes just  _ slightly  _ narrowed in anger, and Roy stares back at him, as collected and serene as ever.

It’s a game, like most things—a game to see who can hold their mask for the longest. And it is a game that Roy has played many times, and it is a game that he has never, ever lost.

Archer straightens up. He regards Roy for a moment longer. His eyes clear.

Whatever he’s about to do, Roy does not like it. He does not like  _ him _ , he does not like the fact that he is suddenly looking so incredibly self-assured once more, as if he’s got something over on Roy that Roy can’t seem to see.

“Bring him back in,” calls Archer, low and just loud enough to carry through to the other side of the door. There is a small pause, a short scuffle outside, and then the door swings open, and Ed is back, fighting his captors with as much enthusiasm as ever, having reverted back to his usual self. The strange, machiavellian Ed from before has vanished into the ether. Roy should have known it was too good to last.

“I have reason to believe that the two of you are conspiring against the king,” Archer says. It’s the kind of accusation that should be declared, loudly, with the appropriate dramatics and possibly even weather-related tomfoolery. But Archer says it softly, quietly, and keeps his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes on the middle distance somewhere between the two of them.

“Certainly, it is not out of the question that I have found evidence of dark magic in your home, Flame Alchemist Mustang. And the arrival of a stranger with indeterminate magical…gifts…occurring at the same time of a new slew of murders throughout the city is undeniably suspect. You are a threat to the peace and sanctuary of Central City and as such, a threat to the king himself.”

He stops speaking, and ever so slowly, his gaze slides over to Roy.

This interview was just a formality. Roy believes Archer when he says he’s found evidence of magical crime in his home. It’s not unlikely, considering Archer has the means and the connections to plant it there. He had always meant to arrest them.

Luckily, Roy thought this might happen.

He looks at Archer, quirks a brow. “And?” he prompts, “What are you going to ask for in return for our freedom?”

Archer tilts his head.

“Your freedom, Mustang, is more easily bargained for,” he says. “But your pet mage here is an unknown. We can’t just let him go like that, you understand.”

Roy maintains his expression of polite interest. Ed, on the other hand, does not.

“Who the  _ fuck  _ are you callin’ a  _ pet _ ?” he snarls, “Say that one more time. One more fuckin’ time, asshole, I  _ dare _ you--,”

 

“If this was a question of monetary payment I’m sure you would have told me by now,” says Roy. Ed wrestles with his guards next to him, but Roy doesn’t hear it. “There’s no need to be coy, Archer. What is it that you want.”

Ed says, “Geber’s fucking ashes, Roy, just take your fuckin’ trade and get the hell out. I’ll be  _ fine _ , these guys are  _ weaklings _ \--,” Note to self, thinks Roy, don’t insult the very guards who are preventing you from moving anywhere.

In all fairness, Ed probably  _ would  _ be fine. At least for a while. He’d probably find a way to escape, or Roy would help him; Riza would be game, too; but Roy is—worried. Archer is making threats, and not subtle ones, and the fact that he obviously thinks he can get away with it suggests that he has considerable power backing him up. And everyone knew about the king’s hatred for magic users…

Archer looks steadily at Roy. Roy nods, just slightly.

“Perhaps we can come to an agreement,” says Archer. The candles flicker, light playing over the table between them.

Ed tosses his hair out of his face and snarls furiously, “ _ Roy _ , don’t you fuckin--,” before he is once again silenced.

Roy arches an eyebrow coolly. “An agreement,” he repeats.

The man nods, not disguising his hungry smile very well at all.  _ Oh, hell,  _ thinks Roy, and he already knows what they’re going to ask him—of course he does. They’ve only been harassing him about it for seven  _ years _ .

And he’ll say yes. Because of  _ course  _ he will.

This day is not going well at  _ all _ .

“We who hold the king’s council have noticed that despite the fact that you are ordained by him, you do not yet owe fealty to our great and merciful king. Perhaps you would feel more inclined to change that if it would help your…friend, here.”

_ We who hold the king’s council.  _ Pretentious asshole.

“We’re not  _ friends _ -,” spits Ed, and goes down in a flurry of golden hair and muffled filthy curses.

 

* * *

 

“This is fucking stupid!” Ed storms through the front door, storms down the hall, storms into the kitchen, kicks a chair, and storms back out again. “This is  _ so  _ fucking stupid--,”

“It is,” allows Roy, wearily, “Very stupid, but- Ed, if you break those lamps  _ you’re _ going to fix them--,”

“I don’t give a fuck about your fucking lamps, Roy!” Ed whirls round, cloak flaring dramatically; his cheeks are flushed, jawline hard and angry, his eyes litter with intensity and momentarily Roy finds himself unable to draw a full breath- “I’m  _ fucking pissed— _ mostly at  _ you _ \-- as you can probably fucking see, and this is  _ so fucking  _ stupid.”

His whole frame is trembling with suppressed fury; his fists are clenched so tight Roy doesn’t believe he’ll be able to uncurl them for at least a week, and he is a vision of utter, utter beauty. Even with a bruise slowly blossoming high and dark on his cheekbone, even with curses stringing themselves from his mouth like bunting, even with his hair half undone and dishevelled over one shoulder—or maybe that should be an  _ especially _ …?

“You need to get your cheek seen to,” Roy says, instead of doing what he  _ wants  _ to do, which is join in vehemently and wholeheartedly with Ed’s rant: how  _ dare  _ they drag him off for questioning, how  _ dare  _ they waste his time, how  _ dare  _ they harm him? Roy would burn them to cinders himself, and maybe he  _ should _ . But he can’t do that, and joining in will only incense Ed more, and behind the spitting anger of his words there is a bottomless well of despair that Roy never wants to see the light of day.

So he gestures to the first aid kit in the kitchen, and Ed scoffs and says, “Fuck you, I’m  _ fine _ ,” and Roy says, “Wonderful, then applying ice and a poultice won’t do any harm,” and Ed argues with him until finally he relents and all the while his shoulders are losing tension, losing tension. Because arguing with Roy is safe grounds, a game they both know perfectly by now.

 

(“What about your-- automail, is it? The weather’s turned again; do you need anything--,”

“Stop trying to take care of me, asshole!” Ed says, “It’s  _ fine _ . I’ve been doing this for seven fucking years, do you think I don’t know when it’s fine--,”)

 

While Roy is handing Ed some ice wrapped in a cloth to press against the swelling bruise on his cheekbone, Ed kicks his feet and mutters, “I can’t believe I was sat in that fucking room listening to their inane fucking questions when I should’ve been looking for- for whatever the fuck I need to be looking for. I can’t believe  _ you _ agreed to-  _ that _ . For me. You fucker.”

Roy searches methodically through the drawers in the first aid kit to find the arnica, and looks up just for a moment to hold Ed’s gaze when he says, “I know.” 

Ed sucks in a breath, and holds it for a long moment before he exhales in an explosive gust and repositions the cloth on his face irritably. “This fucking sucks,” he says again. “I don’t even know where the  _ fuck  _ I should be looking in this fucking city.”

_ Finally _ , Roy thinks. In a roundabout, not-really-asking-at-all way that leaves him able to back out at any moment, Ed is asking him for help.

Piece by piece, he is beginning to learn that for someone so incredibly strong, Ed really is astonishingly insecure about some things.  

“I can show you around the city,” Roy says.

In a small dish in front of him he mixes arnica and rosemary oil, adding meadowsweet just in case—herbal remedies have never been his strong point; Rose is constantly having to warn him about techniques and side effects whenever he buys from her store. He just tends to throw all the ingredients he can think of together in the hopes that, combined, the effect will be that much stronger and more likely to actually work. By doing so with a not-inconsiderable amount of panache, Roy generally manages to avoid people realising everything he does is bullshit.

Luckily, Ed doesn’t seem to know much about healing herbs either, because so far he’s been infuriatingly adept at seeing past Roy’s self-assurance, and relishes the chance to denounce Roy on his bullshit whenever he can.

Currently, Ed is staring at Roy with his eyes narrowed, distrust etched over every inch of his face that isn’t covered by the damp cold compress. Slowly, he peels the cloth from his face and places it on the table without breaking eye contact.

“…What?” Ed says after an uncomfortably intense minute of suspicious staring in which he  _ refused to blink _ .

Roy clears his throat, pushing the poultice across the table, and flips the lid of the first aid kit—a box full of various herbs and rolls of cloth for bandages—shut. “That’s for your bruise,” he says and Ed leans forward to sniff it suspiciously, wrinkling his nose comically until he really shouldn’t be adorable in the slightest.

Alas, Roy continues to find him adorable. He needs some fresh air.

“I’ll show you around the city,” he repeats, “right now, if you wish. It makes sense,” he says, speaking over Ed, who has looked up from where he’s gingerly applying a daube of poultice to his bruise, and opened his mouth to loudly and violently protest his ever wanting Roy’s help with anything;

“You know it does. I’ve lived here for years; I’m a mage too; chances are I know where to get information that can help you better than you do. Additionally, you know I don’t want you to carry out your ridiculous plan of breaking into the library. It only follows, then, that I’ll offer you various other ways of finding what you want, if it means you’ll let go of that idea.”

He sets the box on its shelf with a  _ click _ , and turns smoothly back to face Ed, quirking one brow an infinitesimal amount, just because he knows how aggravating it is. Ed is staring at him, halfway to a glare and struggling for the words to express himself.

“….I can’t fuckin’ believe you just used the word  _ additionally  _ in an actual human sentence,” he mutters at last, but it’s not a refusal. Quite the opposite, in fact.

With an air of intense inner grumbling, Ed rakes a hand through his hair, shaking it out and catching the piece of ribbon he’s been using to secure it in his teeth as he gathers it back and starts plaiting. For a brief second, Roy can only stare transfixed at the way his fingers move adeptly at the back of his head, weaving through the golden strands easily as he braids his hair back. Then he remembers himself and busies himself with standing and packing the first aid kit back onto its shelf.

Roy risks a glance back when it’s been too long for him to feasibly pretend to still be positioning the box on its shelf anymore. Ed’s braiding has reached the nape of his neck; his nose is scrunched adorably once more, this time in abstract concentration.

“Come on,” Roy says, moving past him through the doorway, straight down the hall to the front door, pulling his cape from its hook and sweeping it over his shoulders, “What are you waiting for? I thought you were in some kind of a hurry.”

“Oh, fuck you,” says Ed through a mouthful of hair tie where it’s caught between his teeth, scrambling up from the table, cold cloth forgotten.

 

* * *

There’s a strained atmosphere about the city, a tension only made worse by the conspicuously heightened numbers of silver-armoured Royal Guards accumulating in the streets. Ed counts seven just walking down towards the main road that cuts a straight line from the main gate to the Royal Residence-- a castle. A large, ornate castle. Ed scoffs at it as they walk -- perched at the crest of the hill the city splay out over. From the main street Roy leads the way- with a sure, confident stride, ignoring every one of the numerous stares thrown their way, which range from confused to flat out hostile- to something he cryptically refers to as ‘The Diamond’. His cape flares dramatically and unfairly behind him.

“What the fuck is ‘the diamond’?” Ed demands, glaring at a bearded guy in an expensive-looking shirt who curled his moustachioed lip at the pair of them. Fucking elitist assholes.

 

Ed doesn’t know if it was his less-than-pristine clothing or Roy’s half-cape—midnight blue, bearing the iconic flame symbol that Ed recognises as the Hawkeye’s Flame Alchemy mark and singling him out as a magician under the king’s grudging mandate—that’s inviting the man’s scorn, and to be honest he doesn’t really care. “And what the fuck is  _ up  _ with this city?” he mutters, rubbing at the shoulder joint of his automail. “Biggest magical wellspring in the country and half the high class fuckers look down on magic-users like we’re the fucking scum under their shiny-ass shoes.”

Roy places a hand—warm, always so warm—on Ed’s back, guiding him out of the pathway of a group of harried-looking scribes in billowing robes with their arms overflowing with scrolls. Ed swallows and swats him away.

“You will discover what The Diamond is when we get there,” says Roy magnanimously, heading between a couple bookstores boasting  _ reduced prices on all tomes dated pre-Zosimus.  _ If he had the money, Ed would seriously consider stopping in there before he leaves. Maybe he’ll just break in or something.

“As for the magical elitism,” Roy continues, “it’s as baffling to me as it is to you and every other mage trying to make a living here. The king is…less than supportive of a thriving magical community. I believe it’s his influence that causes the higher class- who tend to be non-magic users, more often than not- to have such profound distaste for mages.”

Ed raises an eyebrow. Up ahead he can make out an indistinct magical aura; something powerful is going on, but with Roy walking beside him and clouding his senses with his own buzzing energy signal, he can’t tell exactly what the hell is it.

“That sounded kinda rehearsed,” he says, and frowns at Roy. The man is wearing a _scarf,_ for fuck’s sake; a muted blue handmade thing that’s all soft knitted wool and cheerful loose ends; Ed suspects it was a gift. He can’t imagine Roy knitting. Or—well. Hidden depths, maybe. “Are you fucking with me or is there a legitimate conspiracy built around the systematic oppression of magic users in Central City that’s actually being spearheaded by the leader of the fucking country?”

Roy’s face does an interesting crinkling thing as they exit out of the cut-through into the brightness of an open space; his steps slow. “Believe me,” he says, glancing at Ed, dark eyes serious despite the wry quirk to his mouth, “I wish I were fucking with you.”

“You know at some point we’re gonna fucking talk about what you did back at the castle thing or whatever,” Ed mutters, pulling his cloak tighter around himself.

Roy breathes in slowly. “I never would’ve pegged you for the kind to talk things out,” he remarks, and ed’s scowl deepens.

“Shut up, fuck you,” he says, “I’m just mad and I don’t  _ get  _ why you’d do something like that for  _ me _ , and I want you to know that if you did it just ‘cause—cause you want me to  _ owe  _ you something—I’ll fucking hurt you. And--,”

“Ed,” says Roy softly, breath streaming out into the open air, “Did you really think that’s why I agreed? I didn’t do it because of that. Of course not. I agreed because it was the smart thing to do.” He looks down at Ed, his face seeming for all the fucking world like he’s about to say something else, and then he looks away again and the moment passes, whipped away like smoke on the wind.  

Ed swallows, and his throat feels raw and his mouth dry. “I don’t--,”

“We can discuss this later,” says Roy— _ interrupts _ Roy, because he’s fucking rude, and ed is going to punch him so hard for that--, and then Roy darts a quick glance down, just the barest briefest flash of smile visible. “We’re here.”

The Diamond is actually more of a kite shape. That’s the first thing Ed notices, and when he tells Roy this he receives an unimpressed eyebrow-raise in return, which is fucking uncalled for because Ed’s point is perfectly fucking valid. People in charge of naming shit should at  _ least  _ learn basic geometry before they just throw around shape names like nobody’s business, Ed thinks.

Furthermore, it’s not even a  _ real  _ diamond- or, for that matter, any kind of precious stone that Ed could sell for profit; no, it’s a wide, bustling marketplace, Berthold Hawkeye-brand streetlamps casting shining patches over the polished cobbles. Strung high along and between rooftops, the edges of the space are lined with bunting, fluttering in the wind; the turning motion of the fabric causes a distracting wave of flashes of brightly coloured material overhead.

The market itself is set up around a statue in the centre of the kite shape; extending out from it in all directions are lines of stalls swathed in coloured drapes—deep reds, rich purples and greens, pale golden cloths of spun silk and more, a dizzying assault on the senses. Blinking, Ed breathes in and  _ fuck  _ that smells almost as good as home—there’s something spiced and tangy; incense, maybe; and sweet candies and mulled wine coating the air the way magic clings to the wind.

Someone pushes a cart loaded with little pastry parcel-things past, heading for the opposite side of the space where there are spaces for more stalls amidst the hubbub, and Ed’s mouth starts watering. He’s barely eaten since this morning when those asshole guards dragged him off to the king’s playground and he’s fucking starving. As per usual.

Roy motions him towards the side, away from the entrance, and Ed follows him without a word, which is apparently unusual enough for it to make Roy send him one of those fleeting side-eye-type glances he does when he’s really discreetly and subtly trying to gauge whether the subject is quite alright.

Ed raises an eyebrow at him in return and Roy smiles and looks away, satisfied, and isn’t it so fucking weird that they’re communicating without words now? Isn’t it so fucking weird that Ed knows what each of Roy’s many variations of his almost-blank-but-not-quite facial expressions mean?

 

It is. It is  _ so fucking weird _ .

And as for this market, this ‘Diamond’; it’s-- well. It is, to be frank, completely and overwhelmingly breathtaking, and there’s so  _ much  _ of it; so much sheer magic blanketing the whole fucking scene; so much colour and so much noise besides that, and it’s hurting Ed’s brain a little just standing there staring at it all.

“Jesus  _ fuck _ , Roy,” he says blankly, watching as the guy running the stall closest to them on the right hand side starts performing some  _ seriously  _ fucking complicated transmutations involving glass and silver and some really fucking incredible artistry that conspire to create a whole bunch of tiny metal-and-glass trinkets.

Actually: ‘trinkets’ doesn’t cut it; this shit is almost  _ incomprehensible _ \- Ed moves forward to get a closer look, and he sees, among others, that there are horse-drawn carriages with silver wheel bands and moving fucking parts; there is a transparent ship with rippling silver sails, and in its belly he can see cogs and pulleys all crafted from tiny interwoven metal strands, clicking and turning slowly to form the delicate mechanism to move the sails.

“I know,” says Roy, and Ed tears his eyes away from the mage with the figurines, because Roy is  _ smiling _ , Ed can hear it in his voice. And he can see it on his face, too, this tugging, shy kind of smile that’s so fucking honest and real it’s making Ed’s chest ache fiercely.

“This is- this is fucking-,” Ed starts, because he has to say  _ something  _ about this place; this is magic at its finest and he’s beginning to understand, now, why Central City is so revered for its magecraft, despite the apparent royal conspiracies and asshole noblemen and shit. But he can’t finish his fucking sentence, because there are water mages in a stall on the left, cheerfully carving ice sculptures out of gathered water vapour; forming miniature cyclones inside sealed glass spheres and trapping them there-  _ they must draw energy from the holders’ heat energy,  _ Ed thinks, watching as an excited kid, with parent attached, reaches forward to take one from the table,  _ theoretically infinitely sustainable, contained storms. _

The level of skill  _ alone _ … these mages must have spent their entire lives perfecting their crafts. Everyone here has been working their asses off for years, decades; they’re doing everything they can to preserve magic in its purest form: the sheer fucking joy of creation, of pushing boundaries and developing strains of magecraft until they flourish and emerge as whole new fuckin’ branches;  _ this  _ is what these people are here for, and Ed… is not enough of a fragile-masculinity asshole to pretend he isn’t getting slightly fucking teary eyed at the sight of it all.

“I know,” Roy says again, and takes Ed by the arm. The left arm, thank fuck, because the right one is still sort-of-really sore from the weather and the general fact that Ed hasn’t been home for an automail check-up in, oh, seven or so years. “Come on,” he adds, sending Ed a sideways grin that makes his fucking heart flip and his organs readjust themselves accordingly, “I want to show you something.”

“Oh, really,” Ed mutters, because he might be experiencing a sense of awe and, like, profound existential nostalgia beyond any other, but that does not mean he’s lost control of his verbal sass facilities. “I never thought you might have an ulterior motive besides dragging me here to stand on the fringes and gape.  _ Never _ .”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” says Roy lightly, not releasing his arm, which sends shivers of electricity into Ed’s skin, “which is fitting, considering your own stature. Ah, here we go.”

While Ed is processing the fact that Roy, the  _ bastard _ , is still fucking making fucking jibes about Ed’s height, and struggling to decide between screaming at him and punching him in the dick, Roy is leading him on a winding path through the stalls, coming to a stop at one decorated in the now-familiar white and red colours of Hawkeye Fire Whatever Inc.

“Oh, hey, boss!” says one of the guys behind the stall brightly. He has sandy blonde hair, an unlit cigarette clamped between his teeth, and is fiddling with something in the inner workings of a lamp, similar to the ones Ed’s seen around Roy’s workshop. “Is this the shady magician fugitive you’re harbouring?”

“Why do you always sound so cheerful about that?” asks the guy sitting next to him wonderingly, shaking his head. He looks down at the handheld heater he’s holding, frowning. “And where the hell is Feury? He’s the one who knows how all this shit works, I can’t figure out this one mechanism-,”

“Ed,” says Roy wryly, “I’d like you to meet Jean Havoc and Heymans Breda, two of my sales team. They’re not directly involved with magical production, but they’re the connection with the wider public.”

Havoc and Breda exchange a high five without looking at each other.

“So they come here and sell your shit for you?” Ed says.

“At an outrageous profit,” agrees Havoc, and looks hopefully up at Roy. “Hey, boss, could you…you know?” he gestures to the cigarette hanging out of his mouth with what Ed can only assume is meant to be a charming grin, and Roy sighs long-sufferingly beside him.

“Don’t you have a lighter?”

Havoc shrugs. “Feury prob’ly took it apart to, like, ‘compare the mechanical and magical workings’ or something. I dunno. I haven’t been able to find it for weeks.”

“Aren’t you meant to be quitting?” Breda asks, “Didn’t you say that girl, what was her name, didn’t she ask you to stop or whatever-,”

“For the  _ last time _ , Breda, cause of all suffering in my life,  _ she dumped me _ . Okay? So now I’m free to fuckin’ chain smoke if I want, and  _ you  _ are free to shut your damn mouth-,”

The bickering turns to squabbling, and Roy is just standing there with his arms folded, looking stern but also faintly amused, like he doesn’t really _ mean _ his whole guy-in-charge act, and Ed wonders if this is what Roy’s like in the moments when he’s human, when he can drop his whole serious mage act for a while and enjoy himself.

The bitterness invading Ed’s stomach and twisting itself around his oesophagus is illogical; it doesn’t make sense because  _ why  _ does Ed care? He doesn’t trust Roy; Roy doesn’t trust him. He’s told him-- some things, the bare bones of some things, but he doesn’t  _ trust  _ him and he doesn’t know him. And that goes vice versa, so why the fuck is Ed  _ jealous _ ?

He walks forward to scrutinise the wares set out over the stall: heating charms, flames in bottles, lamps, fireproofing symbols on patches ready to be stitched into clothing or fastened to walls; it’s similar stuff to what’s in Roy’s workshop. Except the workshop itself betrays Roy’s own initiative-- the yellowed scrolls and browning, delicate papers in there are bursting with lore and handwritten notes, diagrams, crossings out in textbooks and rows of cramped, rushed theories, the letters dashed out almost mindlessly in the author's hast to get it all down before he lost the thread of inspiration. Ed knows the feeling. The goods spread out over this table have nothing on the sheer depth of energy and creativity-- the kind you only get from countless sleepless nights and an endless, endless lust for information-- in that cramped, warmly-lit workroom. 

“This is it?” he asks, and Havoc coughs into his sleeve, eyebrows flying up in surprise.

“ _ It _ ?” he says, gesturing madly to the wares spilling over the velvet tablecloth: golds and burnished bronze warm shades of metal carefully sculpted into ornaments and etched precisely with arrays complicated enough to go catastrophically wrong with the slightest mistake in the markings.  

An amused smile plays over Roy’s face and he smirks at Ed. Asshole. He knows how infuriating that smug crumpled grin is. The cold air has turned Roy’s nose pink; it seems worse against his already pale skin. Why doesn’t he just use one of his fuckin’ heating spells? There are tons scattered over the stall; the idiot should take his own fucking advice and  _ use  _ them.

“Yes,” Roy is saying. “This is it. The research you’ve seen in my workshop is, firstly, purely theoretical. And secondly, even if I  _ did  _ put it into practice--,”

“—the king would have his guards arrest you immediately for ‘meddling with dark forces’ and ‘dangerous dalliance with fire demons’,” finishes Havoc, nodding sombrely. He has given up on his cigarette, tucking it behind his ear for safekeeping instead.

“’Dangerous dalliance with demons’,” repeats Breda, “Nice.”

“Thanks.” Havoc grins at him. They bump fists. Ed strangles the shred of jealousy curling through his chest before it has a chance to draw breath.

“Yeah,” says Ed, “I’ve had…some experience with that.”

“For real?” Havoc asks him, leaning forwards excitedly. Ed takes a miniscule step back.

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “Those guards are  _ dicks _ .”

“You missed the chance to say they’re  _ royal pains in the ass _ , man,” says Breda, shaking his head sadly.

“ _ Damn _ ,” says Havoc feelingly, and tips his head back. “This is why we need to learn time magic, dude.”

“Time magic is impossible-,”

“Oh, fuck that, it is  _ not _ -,”

“He’s right,” says Ed absently, picking up a  flat bronze disk, small enough to fit in one palm and covered in enough spellwork to make the Residence walls look like child’s play. “It’s definitely possible, just fucking difficult-,”

“We’re getting off track,” says Roy. “I’m just checking if everything’s going smoothly. You haven’t had any trouble from the Royal Guard, have you?”

Havoc and Breda exchange looks. “I don’t know, man,” says Breda, “I mean, just the usual, y’know. But they stay away from here. Way too many mages. They’d be outnumbered. Also, I think Riza would stab them if they tried anything.”

“Why?” says Havoc, “Did something happen?”

"You could say that,” says Roy. “I’ll fill you in later. Well, as long as nothing above the usual has happened, we should be fine. Carry on. Oh, and when Feury gets back, tell him I need him to come and take a look at some lamps in the workshop, will you? I’m thinking about changing the design, and i need a second opinion.”

Havoc and Breda offer up lazy but only half-joking salutes, and Roy nods at them both before he turns to Ed. 

“Let’s go,” he says. His two friends behind the stall are watching them openly and curiously, and there is a certain light in Havoc’s eyes which means they need to leave immediately before he starts stockpiling blackmail material for later use. 

Ed scowls at him, sighs, and tugs his cloak more securely around himself. “Fine,” he mutters, “Where to next, O great flame alchemist?” 

“Why, Ed,” says Roy lightly, leading him through the winding stalls towards the other end of the marketplace and the exit onto another street, the smell of magic in the air around them, “i had no idea you thought so highly of me. Thank you.” And when Ed opens his mouth, eyes widening in that brilliantly expressive way he has, Roy says, “Next we are heading to see someone who I think might be able to help with your information problem.”

A kite trailing strings wheels through the air above them, piloted by some unknown child holding the line, vibrant colours twirling and arcing through the blue-grey clouds. 

Ed rolls his eyes hard, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and when he blinks again his eyes are knife-bright and focused. 

“Finally,” he says, and grins, a sharp weary curve of his mouth. He gestures before them with a flourish, “Maybe you’ll turn out to be useful, after all.”

They leave the Diamond behind them, the cheerful calls of cajoling stallkeepers fading into the sky around them; the inviting warmth of magic clinging to them as they step further back out into the cold city; Roy’s fingertips buzz, retaining the heat of being surrounded by so many of his kin. At some point or another, the pavements grow crowded and they walk, shoulder brushing, cloak-to-cloak, side by side into the streets. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i said slow burn i Meant it 
> 
> [tumblr](www.twitter.com/caprisunfun>twitter</a>%20%7C%20<a%20href=) !!!!
> 
> aaand ETERNAL THANKS to my pal [felix](www.twitter.com/feeghosts) whose input has been Invaluable in writing this chapter/this entire fic lmao thank u buddy


	6. lustre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's in the library?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> H A P P Y H A L L O W E E N ik it's been 7 years since i updated i am Sorry,, i was getting used to college n shit which is cool !!!! also nanowrimo starts tomorrow but its All Fine i won't be abandoning this!!!! i'm aiming to be finished by 2017 at the very latest, hopefully a lot sooner !!! coolnicefun  
> anywAy all of your kudos and comments are amazing & so motivating !!! i am agog, i am aghast!!!! thank u !!! <333

 

     The stone cottage, washed-out grey and cold as fuck even in the summer, stood high and unforgiving up on the crest of the wind tossed hills. Grass and rock and shrieking gulls ripped away on the air, plummeted down the steepness to the valley below.  
In the garden Al was laughing, delighted, as Teacher etched a perfect circle into the stone, dusting the chalk from her hands and getting to her feet with an air of finality when she was done: _now you.  
_  Their first tries were wobbly and uneven, and their faces dropped when they realised it wasn’t just gonna go right on the first try if you didn’t work for it. And Izumi was looking down at them with critical eyes, hands on her hips, and they kept trying, again and again, filling the patio with lopsided circles, until it was perfect.

Persistence. An Elric quality, mom used to say.

That night, in adjacent beds, huddled under the covers, Al’s eyes peeking bright over the top: _we’re gonna do it, right, brother? We’re gonna get real good at magic, and then…and then…_

 _Yeah, Al,_ he’d said, nodding grimly into the dark, glimmers of stars just visible out of the cracked window, _We’re gonna get mom back. Just you wait._

Al, wistful: _I can’t wait to hug her again, Brother…I miss her. I miss—_

_I know, Al, I miss her too but it’s gonna be okay we’re gonna do it I promise we’ll get her back you saw today you saw the sparks and the way the earth moved, we did that we can do it again it’s the principles really just equivalent exchange and we’re gonna do it and then we’ll get to see her smile…_

The stars flickered, dimmed. The clouds were rushing in, storm-dark and sagging under the weight of all that rain. Outside, the water fell, and sluiced over the stones, washing away the chalk lines, the sweeping curves, the hours of work, until there’s nothing left but dark cold stone and the sighing of the wind.

 

* * *

 

     Roy is looking at him with an amused tilt to his mouth and Ed breaks off in the middle of a tirade on the state of that fucking spellwork on that column over there, honestly; it’s fucking disgraceful and why the _fuck_ would any remotely competent mage let _that_ piece of shit excuse for a demonic energy seal be used as a ward--?

“What?” he says, suspicious. The crooked shape of Roy’s mouth gives way to something fuller, a more generous curve; he smiles. It is not fair that Ed _still_ has to physically stop himself from taking a step back or, like, clutching his chest or some gross shit like that.

“Nothing,” says Roy, “It’s just fascinating, listening to you talk about magic, that’s all.”

Ed stares at him. “What the fuck, Roy,” he says. Where does he come up with this shit? Does he prepare every night before he goes to bed, just in case he needs to spit out some sappy shit the next day? Is that what all the weirdass journals and shit in his workroom are? Not _magical theory_ or whatever; no, it’s just lists and lists of pure, unadulterated _sap._ Roy laughs like he knows exactly what Ed’s thinking, and turns to glare pleasantly at a man in an impractical coat who is looking their way with a disgusted expression.

The clouds are gathering dark in the corner of the sky, threatening rain. They’re walking further and further from the centre of the city, roads spiralling out away from them like threads on a web. The air _shivers_ , momentary, with energy—it’s a split second, but Ed tenses, anticipatory. Even after it passes he’s uneasy. The energy levels here are _fucked_. Or maybe it’s just his nerves, which have been on edge for the past, like, hundred years or so. Every part of him feels on edge, like there’s electricity scorching through his cells; his chest has been tight and strange since this morning but he’s gotten good at ignoring it by now; it always goes away eventually…

“Where are we even going, anyway?” Ed asks, when Roy has turned back and they’re walking again; “All this fucking air of mystery, ‘someone who can help with my information problem’—whatever, asshole, you do realise I still have to get into the fucking library, right? That that objective hasn’t changed?”

“Luckily for you,” says Roy, dipping into his pocket and pulling out the metal plate on its silver chain, “Thanks to the deal I struck with Archer, I now have unlimited access to the library and all of its resources, as an honorary member of the King’s Guard.”

The plate spins slowly on the end of the chain, flashing the king’s seal on every turn. Ed remembers, darkly, the guards’ faces when they’d unlocked the manacles and shoved him out the front gate; the overriding memory is how fucking difficult it had been not to just turn the whole damn castle into cinders, but under that seething fury he sees, clearly, Roy exiting the palace moments later. He’d been pocketing the plate, the metal flashing in the light, and Archer had leaned in the doorway behind him, waving a piece of parchment—even from so far away Ed could sense the magic imbued in it, the binding seal sunk silvery into the drying ink: a contract. Not just a normal contract. Unbreakable.

A bargain and a soul signed away; and for what? For _Ed_? And his stomach twisted, clenched, and Roy looked up at him as he made his way across the distance to the gate, passing straight by the guards, unruffled and serene as the wind. The lightness in his voice, the sheer incredible _okay_ ness of it that scream, even louder, just how much it was not okay _at all_.

“You bastard,” says Ed, because the silence is stretching on too long and he has to say something, and besides; it’s _true_. “You…bastard.” And again, throwing up his hands in exasperation because Roy _still_ hasn’t stopped avoiding the fucking question: “Why the _fuck_ did you--?”

Roy breezes forwards, tucking the plate smoothly back into his pocket. “There are things in there that I wouldn’t mind looking at, too, you know,” he says, “After all, I _am_ a mage, too. And the king has to keep the dangerous books somewhere, doesn’t he?”

See, Roy’s got a point—Ed didn’t go through all the utter bullfuckery of his childhood to grow up not knowing just how dangerous books can be—but still, the _library_? “That makes no sense,” says Ed, “If he was really smart he’d keep ‘em in the royal palace, not the fucking library, I don’t care how secure it is.”

“And what,” says Roy, the edge of a sly smile graces the side of his face and he turns, just slightly, collar flipped up, hair swept across his forehead in a way that makes Ed want to fucking _scream_ , “Gave you the impression that the king is _smart_?”

Oh, he is a bastard. The worst kind. The worst of the fucking worst, and Ed is gritting his teeth and storming blindly forwards and thinking if he doesn’t get out of here soon he’s gonna end up doing something really stupid. Like falling in love with the guy.

 

     Okay, wait—love? Who said anything about love? It’s not—it’s not _love_ it’s just… Roy can be funny. Sometimes. He can make Ed smile, when he’s not being a complete _dick_ , but the thing is; even when he _is_ being a dick, he’s not…you know. Being a dick. He’s annoying, yes, and smarmy, and superior, and Ed hates him with everything he’s got—but he’s never insensitive. He never pries. He doesn’t do that _look_ , the slimy, assessing look that other people give you that makes you want to wash yourself until it stops clinging to you—he doesn’t do that. And that counts for something, even if Ed’s not entirely sure what that something _is._

“You never answered my question,” he says, Roy catching up to him, “where the fuck are we going?”

“I thought I’d introduce you to the most reliable information-gatherers in the city,” says Roy, smooth as silk, like it’s normal to say that sentence— _the most reliable information gatherers in the city—_ offhanded and shrugging like it doesn’t even matter. Ed can’t _believe_ him. “We can stop at the library first, if you’d rather.”

Ed squints up at him, but there’s no sarcasm in his voce, on his face, in his eyes. Weird. “…Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I need to check out that energy thing.”  
He’d been so sure at the time, so fucking _certain_ that whatever was under the library giving off such a strong signal would have the answers he needs for Al, but now that they’re further away, and now that they’ve just been, like, aimlessly walking around chatting to Roy’s friends, or whatever, it’s like…his head has cleared. Like whatever it was had taken hold of him at the library and now it’s worn off. It was his usual brand of what mom and Teacher always called _reckless determination,_ except concentrated into one short vicious burst; remembering that shit makes his head ache. Could be some kind of modified attention spell, maybe, or a _lure_ of some kind.

People know he’s in the city now. Word has spread throughout Central—or at least, Ed assumes so, from the amount of glances he’s getting, from the whispers that cling to their backs like smoke--  and maybe further than that; _people_ , specific people, a specific person, could know where he is. Could be coming to find him. Ed doesn’t let it bother him, forces himself to shake off the weight of it. Even if Kimblee knows, even if he’s on his way here right now, there’s no point getting fucked up over it. If the worst comes to the worst, they’ll fight. They’ll fight; Ed will win; everyone goes home.

Fuck, he hopes the sick feeling in his stomach wears off soon. It’s harder to concentrate on what matters with the twisting of his guts making everything taste like pennies and ash.  


 

* * *

 

      The walk up to the library is quiet, or as quiet as it could be on a market day. Roy thinks idly about the customers he should be seeing, the lack of a _busy, back soon_ sign on the door, the disappointed look Berthold would be giving him is he was around to do so—but it all dissipates, like dust ferried away on the wind, every time he turns and accidentally glances at Ed.

His hood, flipped up against the cold, is half-falling down, strands of hair escaping and curling around his face. His eyes are a clear, light shade of gold in the clear-soup quality of the sunlight cast over the city through a thin layer of wintry cloud. Despite the grim way he walks and the steely, gritted-teeth way he holds himself, studiously avoiding moving his arm too much, the pain of his metal limbs doesn’t seem to reach his eyes. Still, though _\-- metal_. In this weather. Roy just wants to wrap him in blankets and supply him with hot drinks until the season changes, but something tells him that Ed would be less than cooperative.  
So instead, in the interests of not getting shouted at but also doing at least _something_ to alleviate any suffering the mage is experiencing, Roy is very, _very_ subtly influencing the temperature of the air currents around Ed’s limbs. From what he’s heard, Ed’s brand of magic is more flashy, more _boom_ , explosions, fireworks, devastation; and yes, of course, flame magic can be flashy as _hell_ —but it doesn’t have to be. And Roy has gotten very good at subtle. Hopefully to the level where Ed won’t notice, or at least that he stays too distracted to notice.

The medallion in his pocket is a conscious weight knocking gently into his hip with every step. Without even trying, he can conjure up the image in his mind: the flat, dense silver disk, the raised image of the lion embossed loudly on the surface, the exact way the light catches the chain as it swings from his fingertips…

This is a good thing, he reminds himself. This is the beginning of the revolution—not loud, not all at once, but the result of years and years of careful planning; him and Riza and Maes hunched around a table discussing in hushed whispers back when they’d each performed the required three years of military service. Back when they’d stepped onto the battlefield and the horror and the gore and the dirt and ash and blood had never really left them, not even now. Not ever.  
_This_ , this small, palm-sized lump of metal in his pocket; this is opening doors for them that they never would have been able to force open before. For too long they’d lingered  frustrated on the outside, the corruption and _wrongness_ eating away at the government staring them straight in the eyes but unable to do anything to stop it, and even with Riza’s connections as a knight there were still questions that went unanswered, essential information and gaps they couldn’t fill.

If you can’t take the king from his throne, topple the throne out from under him.

 _Take them down from the inside_.

“There.” Ed speeds up, face pointed up the slope towards the crest of the hill: the library, magnificent even from a distance, stands up ahead, afternoon sunlight warming the top of the building and turning the spires warm and caramel. 

 

     Getting in is almost laughably easy. Roy just pulls the chain from his pocket, silver flashing, and the guards’ eyes widen; they snap to attention. Their eyes flicker uneasily over Ed, who fixes them with his most venomous glare—poisonous enough to leave whole cities crumbled and guttering in its wake, Roy suspects-- and that’s it. That’s _it_.

The entrance is theirs. The library steps seem bigger than reality, the stone still smooth and bright; too few people have walked there to have made any lasting imprint— the cold shining grey is unworn, flawless.

 

     In tandem, they pass through the wide, arched doorway into the atrium. A desk, bare but for a small pad of paper and a discarded stub of pencil in the centre, stands empty to the left. Roy thinks he’s the only one feeling as though they’re trespassing on hallowed ground—Ed isn’t even paying attention as they walk past the lone desk. His face is set in deep concentration, his right hand raised slightly in front of him. Roy wonders if the metal fingers are more sensitive to magic, if they’re imbued with some sort of receptors.

Their footsteps echo slightly as they move through the room, through the secondary set of doors on the far side, and into the labyrinth of the main stacks.

The first breath in tastes like musty shelves and disintegrating hardcovers, and Roy really shouldn’t be surprised at that. Still, the scholarly part of himself that he tries to keep boxed way inside is sobbing quietly at the sight of books pressed together like that, spines straining, crushed between overflowing shelves. Ed is suppressing a wince as he stares around.

The second breath is easier. The library, slowly, is beginning to look less like a scene of literary carnage, and more like something profound. It’s like the space is a scene frozen in time, untouched for centuries that they’ve stumbled on accidentally,  unsettling the perfect tension in the air along with the clouds of dust they stir with their shoes as they move further inside.

“Wait,” says Ed. His face is suddenly pale and alarmed, his eyes narrowed. Roy stops. The stacks loom around them; high beams arch above them; stained glass windows filter streams of light into shafts of deep colour. Entering way overhead, they pool onto the deep chestnut floor, dust motes swirling frenetically, caught and suspended in the light.

“What is it?” Roy asks him.  
 Concentration passes over Ed’s face; he’s not paying attention and Roy takes the moment to stare helplessly at Ed’s cheekbones, his eyelashes, the furrow of his brow; his caramel skin is warmed and familiar against the browns and golds of the library shelves. Surrounded by books, standing half in and half out of a puddle of light—so that one of his eyes is struck gold and shining in the dimness of the hushed building, strands of hair on one side of his head soaking up the sun and holding it there, burnished and brilliant—Ed looks entirely at home.

Magic sparks in his fingertips as Ed raises them slowly in front of him. All at once the building seems to shrink around them, and Roy can’t blame the walls for wanting to be closer to the mage, can’t blame the way the air seems to rush in tight around them: like this, Ed is _magnetic,_ in his element and exuding magic and summer air with every breath.

“It’s not here,” says Ed. His voice rings out sudden and sharp; the magic falls away from him like a shrugged-off cloak. Roy blinks.

 “What do you mean?” The walls are very distant. The golden light is darker now; the dappled pools of it on the ground seem less striking than before.

Ed looks up at him, a jerky movement made stranger by the expression on his face, a twisted edge to his mouth, his eyes shuttered and cold.  
No wonder the building is holding its breath.  
Something is very wrong.

“I mean it’s fucking _gone_ , Mustang,” Ed says, fists bunching as if by reflex; violently restless, he takes two quick steps forwards then spins, paces back, clenching and unclenching his fists. “The energy that I felt under the building, the fucking— _presence_ or whatever; it’s _gone_. Fucked off. I don’t—it must’ve moved.”

Roy draws in a breath. “If it’s moved,” he says slowly, “Does that mean it’s sentient?” Ed nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Human. A person. Whatever. I need to talk to them, I need--,” he breaks off again,

“So there’s another insanely powerful mage in this city, apart from you,” says Roy. What else is there that he doesn’t know? He’s lived here for years. He thought he understood this city, he thought he’d figured out its secrets.

“Right,” says Ed, “I can’t explain it; sometimes I just get this— _knowledge_ , and when I felt that shit down there--,” he gestures violently at the floor— “I knew I’d find what I’m looking for. Underneath. With _them_ , this asshole who’s decided to just up and _leave--,”_

He shakes his head; he shakes. Roy can _see_ him resisting the urge to lash out at the bookshelf nearest to them; he deconstructs the gestures: first, Ed’s eyes flicker to the shelf, his fists bunch; his shoulders tense into a hard line. His mouth twitches, he lets out a minuscule breath, the barest edge of tension dissolves and he looks away again, eyes hooded and dark.

“And now I have to start over again,” Ed says, low and disgusted.

“You’ll find them,” says Roy, unsure how to help but wanting, _needing,_ to reassure him; wants anything but to stand here watching Ed direct his anger at himself. “Of course you will; an energy signal this large—we’ll comb the city until you do. We’ll find them.”

Ed meets his eyes, tilting his face into shadow. He shakes his head again, drags a hand through his hair. “I don’t—I mean, yeah, of course I’ll fucking _try_ , but this city, the energy signatures are all fucked up, there’s—“ he waves a hand in the air, the single gesture encompassing a world’s worth of frustration—“there’s _too much_ of it. There’ll be sudden flares sometimes, like someone’s set off a fucking magical bomb or some shit but it’s never consistent and it’s always dotted all over the fucking place and mixed up in all this— _stuff_ , and all this white noise.”

He rubs at his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. “It fucking sucks,” he says, “I think it’s gotta be the sheer amount of latent energy in the city itself making the signals go to shit. Like, there’s so _much_ magic just chilling in the air or whatever that it’s interfering with human energy signatures, too.”

 

After that, there’s not much point in sticking around.  Ed is antsy, clenching and unclenching his fists as they make their way back through the winding walls of books and out onto the street again. Worryingly, it’s as if he doesn’t even notice the manuscripts and scrolls as they pass by on their way out. His eyes are shuttered and far away.  
 Roy would dearly love to spend more time perusing the stacks, uncovering the secrets that the king keeps so desperately locked away; but he can wait. Riza has said she’ll try to drop by later; they have a lot to discuss, and she’ll probably want to grill him about the incident that led to the compact disk of silver sitting so delicately in his pocket. And besides—even taking that visit out of the equation, the day is busy yet.  
 After all, he still needs to introduce Ed to his sisters. 

 

* * *

 

     The walk to the bar is almost painfully silent. The only reason Ed knows it’s a bar is because he asked about seven million fucking times after Roy’s first several vague replies; he’s not in the _mood_ for stupid-ass cryptic answers like, “ _you’ll see when we get there,”_ and “ _I’m something of a regular_.”

Arguing with Roy, it turns out, is…actually kind of therapeutic. Refreshing, even. After the library thing, which Ed isn’t going to think about, because if he does he’ll spiral into the deepest depths possible and rock bottom has _nothing_ on him after everything he’s done and everything he’s seen and everything he’s ever fucking felt—anyway.  
After that shit, arguing with Roy about, like, random bits of spellwork graffitied on walls, and the correct sigil for protection against natural disasters, is a welcome distraction. It’s like Roy _knows_ , which is worse, so Ed doesn’t think about that, either. Instead, he keeps walking, keeps moving forwards through the streets and the late-afternoon light dappling over the cobblestones; and he argues with Roy until each breath stops feeling like hot irons stabbing him in the chest and acid-soaked rocks churning in his stomach.

After a while Roy breaks off and motions Ed down another street, but he does it with this weird little side-glance that translates from Roy-speak into _I don’t concede that you’re right about efficiency symbols and I’m wrong, I’m only stopping this argument because we’ve arrived, don’t worry; we’ll continue this later and I’m convinced I’m right,_ and Ed gives him his best incensed glare. Ed’s good at incensed glares. It’s something of a skill.

Roy just winks at him, dark eyes and hair brushed carelessly over his forehead. Fucking bastard.

 

     

     The bar is tucked into a corner of the city in such a way that it seems suddenly fifty times darker outside when they step in; the lighting and the low, smoky music conspire to make the outside world seem distant and night-like, despite the fact that sunset is still a ways off yet.

Wooden panelling in dark oak colours skirts the walls; low tables hung with heavy velvet drapes obscure the back half of the room. There’s a piano in the corner, and someone is singing, smoky and sweet. Ed’s eyes flicker over the protection runes above the doorway, the arrays scratched into the window sills. There are bunches of herbs in glass jars on either side of the bar—a huge, polished surface taking up most of the back wall—and Ed recognises some of them as ones he’s seen elsewhere, hanging from the ceiling of Roy’s kitchen.

There are symbols in the floorboards; Ed can feel them sparking hot under his boots when they move forwards. The workmanship is—familiar. Very familiar. He glances at Roy, whose expression is, as usual, unreadable.

Unreadable, except Ed hasn’t gotten this fucking far by being _un_ observant, and these past few days he’s kind of gotten pretty good at figuring out the basics of Roy’s various poker faces. There it is, in his eyes: expectancy. And maybe just a little bit of nerves.

But what the hell does Roy have to be nervous about?

“Roy!”

A flurry of shoes, a rustle of skirts, a sudden sweet, floral scent and Ed flinches out of the way before he can stop himself: a woman sprints across the room and throws herself into Roy’s arms.

Roy laughs and hugs her tightly. The woman is grinning brightly, eyes squeezed tight shut, joy settling over her features—she’s pretty, real pretty, with bouncing curls and long dark lashes, and Roy is holding onto her delightedly, genuine happiness on his face and a warmth in his voice when he says, “Hi Maddie,” into her hair.

Jealousy. That’s the feeling, clawing at his chest. _Congratulation, asshole,_ he thinks to himself numbly, _once again you have managed to completely fucking lead yourself on.  
_ This is what happens when he loses sight of what’s important; all this fucking time he’s spent grabbing at hope that never existed and reading into shit that really did not need reading into; he’s so fucking _pathetic,_ did he really, truly think that Roy would ever look twice at someone like _him_ \--?

In front of him, Maddie releases Roy and steps back, grinning, hands on her hips. “Come on,” she says, “Come through to the back! It's been _way_ too long, it’s so good to see you, Roy-boy—!”  
 Roy gives her an injured look: “ _Really_? You too?” and all she does is laugh, weaving expertly between tables.

And then they’re moving, Roy gesturing Ed to follow, when Ed’s nerves are piqued for panic and all he wants to do is run the fuck away.

“So, what can I do for you?” Maddie asks when they’ve reached a door on the other side of the room and pushed through into a smaller room, draped in wine-red velvets, candles flickering in wall-sockets. She turns to Ed, raising her eyebrows. “And who’s _this_?”

 

Crossing his arms feels like the thing to do, so Ed does; Maddie is looking at him expectantly and there’s a gleam in her eyes that reminds Ed of Winry. The feeling of being punched in the stomach is back by threefold. Ed fucking hopes it doesn't show on his face, but maybe it does because Roy clears his throat, drawing the attention back to himself, coolly competent as usual but warm, now, smiling with both his mouth and his eyes-- and now Ed's thinking about Roy's mouth. Fucking  _fantastic_. 

“Maddie,” he says, with a meaningful glance at her—any other day and Ed would be wondering what the fuck that’s about, but right now he’s dealing with a shit-ton of unasked for emotions and it’s fucking with his concentration—“This is Ed. He’s a mage; he’s looking for some information. Ed, this is my sister, Maddie.”

It takes him a second to register what Roy just said. And then it takes him another to blink, stupidly, and scramble for some words in the sudden storm of realisation blotting out the rest of his brain. All he can think is, _Oh_.

“Your sister?” Ed blurts before he can atop himself, and then it’s like, fuck the running away, he just wants to sink through the floor until he hits bedrock, and then maybe just keep going. You know. Just in case.

“Adoptive sister, if you must know,” says Maddie cheerfully, hopping onto the arm of a deep purple chaise-lounge. “So _you’re_ the mage, then.” She says it with great interest, like Ed is some bizarre machine she found in a treasure pile and she wants to take him apart to see how he works.

Ed bristles. Fuck that. “What are you--,”

“Yes,” Roy cuts in, with _another_ meaningful glance, and alright, maybe the sudden rush of jealous-angry-guilty-sad has been quashed enough for Ed to frown and think, _what the fuck?_  “You can interrogate him all you want, later—,”

“She can _what_?” Ed says, and Roy just keeps on going—

“—If you can help us out with something first.” He flicks a glance at Ed that says _trust me_. The way Ed’s chest _clenches_ \-- some un-nameable feeling spilling out of his veins and spreading warm over his ribs, a stupid kind of hope, a guilty kind of softness, some disgusting part of himself revelling in the camaraderie in Roy’s eyes-- isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s not the worst thing; Ed’s had a lot of _worst things_ , but even so, it’s definitely makes his top fucking ten.

Maddie looks appraisingly at Roy, then at Ed, and maybe she sees something promising in Ed’s tattered cloak and beat-up knife sheathes and cheap gloves he cut the fingers off of himself ‘cause fuck _buying_ a pair, because she smiles. Then leans forward, businesslike.

“Information, huh?” she says. Roy nods, pulling a chair—there is so much velvet in this room, it’s drowning in it. Ed doesn’t know much about interior design or any of that bullshit, but this seems just a _little_ fucking extreme—out from god knows where, and settling down languidly into it as if it was custom-made for him. Maybe it was. _Siblings._

It occurs to Ed that there is a _lot_ he doesn’t know about Roy. It occurs to him that he maybe wants to find out.

“Woah, wait a fucking second,” he says, holding up his hands, “ _interrogate_ _me later_? I don’t fucking think so. And what the hell—information? I’ve been to all the information brokers in this city, they-,”

Maddie snorts. “What, those amateurs? Listen, this isn’t some third-rate rumour mill the Madame is running. The only people who know about this place are the people we want to know. ” She nods at Roy. “You got lucky with this one. Anyway--,” She extends her hand, challenging. “Pleasure to meet you. Madeline. Finest informant in the city—well, one of them.”

At least this partly explains why Roy is so fucking weird all the time, Ed thinks, reaching forwards warily to shake; he can see where Roy learned it all. The—alluring air of mystery and shit. It’s all _over_ the place.

Maddie’s fingertips brush his own, and that’s why Ed is so confused for a split second; he hadn’t sensed anything on her before so why the fuck—

And then he realises. And the energy spike skyrockets, his mind suddenly blank, and all around him the air is crackling and the signal, immediately, is _so close_ , he can almost _touch_ it, and he’s moving for the door on pure instinct before he even has a chance to properly think about leaving.

By the time he’s wondering if he should’ve told Roy where he was going, he’s already back out on the street, door swinging behind him, boots pounding over the cobblestones and his heart in his mouth, everything else a distant echo as he runs.

 

* * *

 

 

     Roy is trying his very best to look as relaxed and comfortable as possible on his chair, but it's difficult when his sister is standing there giving him _looks_ every two seconds. He'd forgotten what it was like, having a sibling around to wiggle their eyebrows suggestively at any sign of-- friendship, or comradeship, or whatever the hell this is. Maes is bad enough, eighty percent of the time. Resisting the-- childish, immature,  _I am a grown man and I refuse to be embarrassed by this_ \-- urge to hide his face in his hands is becoming more and more difficult each time Maddie makes eye contact with him. 

And then she's turning her full attention to Ed, smirking dangerously, and Roy doesn't know what she's planning but they grew up together, and he knows it's not anything good. Ed's cheeks are flushed. Roy wonders for a moment if he knows, and then has to look away hurriedly.   
  
  
Ed freezes a millisecond before he accepts Maddie’s handshake, and Roy’s brow furrows; he reaches out a hand unconsciously, a question half-forming on his lips at the flash of shock that skates over Ed’s features—and then the air around him is suddenly, strangely _hot_ ; and Ed is spinning on his heels, diving for the door and skidding out of the room.

“What--?” Says Maddie, sliding off the couch, and Roy doesn’t remember jumping to his feet, but he must have done because here he is, staring blankly at the Ed-shaped hole in the air.

“He sensed something,” says Roy, because he’s seen that expression before, at the library. The candles brighten and flicker, shadows on the walls fluctuating, and he remembers the incongruous heatwave, his fingertips tingling.  
Shit. It must be close. He repeats the words to himself, distracted; the door is still open a crack and music spills in from the other room; Vanessa is singing, tapping out notes on the piano Roy remembers as a child would, the top of his head just reaching over the lid, the wooden seat a mountain. Where the hell is his aunt?

“ _What_ must be close?” says Maddie, already reaching for the dagger under the couch cushions, because she’s proactive like that and they’ve been waiting for the tension to reach a breaking point for months. Her eyes narrow, shoulders squaring, ready for a fight. “Should I be warning the others? Is it the military?”

Shaking his head, his next words buzz in his throat, mouth opening, he draws a breath.  
But he doesn’t finish, and he never will, because then the explosion happens, and whatever he was about to say is all at once unimportant.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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	7. phosphorence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title for this chapter: Ed Gets Rektd™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT WHATS THAT THATS RIGHT ITS AN UPDATE HERE TAKE IT JUST TAKE IT FROM ME 
> 
> (really though, thank you so much to everyone who's commented and left kudos. you're the reason i've kept going & havent just given up and ditched this completely. you guys are the real ones. this isn't the final chapter but we're so, so close now, and i'm so excited to get there! i think you'll like it. i hope you will. please enjoy this chapter-- 8k! wow!-- and i'm really truly sorry for how long it's been. i hope you'll stick by me. and as always, please dont hesitate to let me know any mistakes!! there are sure to be thousands <3
> 
> ALSO: MY BEST FRIEND, MY SOULMATE, MY MOST FAVOURITE PERSON IN THE WORLD, FELIX CAME UP WITH THIS ENTIRE PLOT POINT AND I LOVE HIM AND THIS WOULD NEVER EXIST WITHOUT HIM <333

The electrum gauntlet is new. It’s cold and harsh against Roy’s skin, but he’s too preoccupied to care. Ed’s disappeared, Maes might as well be AWOL, and only Riza remains a constant; amidst the chaos and the blood, she is a steady, comforting presence at his side. She moves a piece of rubble carefully with her foot, rolling it over the ground away from the mouth of the collapsed tunnel. All around them, uniformed soldiers and enforcers dig in their shovels, the silence uninterrupted but for the dull _clack_ of rocks tumbling over each other, the occasional hoarse shout of _over here!_

There’s an air of exhaustion over the city; already wrung out from months of attacks, this is the worst by far and everyone-- the huddled families gathered around the fringes of the scene, tear streaked and anxious; the soldiers themselves with hopeless eyes and blistered palms.  
The clean-up effort has been going on for days and people are still trapped under there. At times, Roy hears their faint cries for help under the piles of brick and mortar, and he has to turn sharply to see Riza’s acknowledgment before he can convince himself he’s living it, that it isn’t some haunting echo of the past.

“Is there anything you can do?” Sheska, one of Maes’ sometimes-informants and otherwise diligent military personnel assistant, looks up at him; she adjusts her glasses.

There’s a dusting of chalk and dirt over her face, a grim set to her jaw. Beside him, Riza is the same except the look in her eyes and the set of her jaw is more resigned, a world away from the fresh bleached horror on Sheska’s face. Roy shakes his dark hair out of his eyes and thinks grimly about what a future playing pawn to the king and his military will mean.  
He flexes his hands, the soft slide of the metal plates strapped to his right wrist unfamiliar and unnatural.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, surveying the blank grey ruins underneath the bleak grey sky. “Possibly. As soon as Havoc and Breda get here we’ll know for sure.” And Feury, although Roy’s not sure when he’ll see him next; yesterday he’d told him to give a message to Maddie at the bar when he next had the chance. So many plans, so much string to get tangled in. Roy can only do so much, tied up here in the rubble and the dust, but he’s sure as hell doing _something._

The king, when he’d asked-- ordered-- Roy to help, had made it sound easy. Just a little magic, a flick of the wrist and some small effort, and the rocks and rubble rise; time reverses; trapped lives restored.

Roy grinds his teeth, realises what he’s doing, and forces himself to stop with a steadying breath. Riza’s eyes flick to him: _you okay?_ He gives her a slight nod, pushes his hands into his pockets and looks out over the chaos once more.

 

He has no doubt that if Ed was here, the underpass and square would be pristine, good as new, easy as breathing. A hot, selfish flash on anger runs through him like a thrill: _how dare he,_ says the small, worming voice at the back of his head, _how could he just run off to do whatever it is he’s doing while_ this _is happening; how_ dare _he_.

Roy shakes it off. He is revolted with himself, in a tiredly familiar way. Ed has his own mysterious quest, and besides; the mage owes no allegiance to this city and its people. And that’s even if he _could_ help-- the sheer breadth of destruction is… unspeakable, even to Roy and his team, who have seen worse.

(Never mind the arrow-true knowledge sinking into Roy’s chest that it wouldn’t matter to Ed who they are, where these people are from; selflessness runs through him like a river; the determination to help and to heal is in the mage’s bloodstream and Roy _knows_ this as he knows his own heart--)

A shout, from some ways behind them. A soldier has found another victim, moving weakly in the dust of the underpass. Healers hurry over, bandages and herbs and stretcher at the ready, but there is something about the strained quality of the unnamed person’s breathing that reminds Roy, hopelessly, of those three years he’d spent as a conscript, the awful, awful feeling of _it’s too late._

He tears his gaze away. Rize nods at him, lips pressed into a tight line. Right.

Do some magic, mage.

 

The damage is extensive-- a collapsed underpass spanning thirty feet or more. Roy can tell, from the vaguely silvery shimmer settled over the general area, that this was no mundane means of destruction.

The anti-mage society is going to have a damn field day. He licks his lips, looking over the billowing, choking dust; the milling soldiers and civilians picking through the wreckage. If he could just snap his fingers and _fix it_ …. but no, god, there are so many variables.

There is no room, _no room_ , for uncertainty in magic; there’s no allowance for forgiveness or mercy or stupid mistakes; the tiniest, most insignificant error can and will mean at the very least _maiming_ worse, death.  
To attempt to lift and restore the area with people still trapped, clawing, buried beneath the carnage… Roy swallows hard. His fingers, encased in metal, prickle slightly.

Fire is not meant for healing-- his speciality is destruction, not rebuilding. He knows this, and most importantly, the _king_ knows this; he’s seen Roy’s file. Roy’s being here instead of tearing over the city looking for a runaway mage with blond hair and a terrible personality is no coincidence.

It makes him wonder what exactly it is that the king is so worried he could be doing if he wasn’t stuck here in the dust and the carnage and the buzzing background noise of screams and sobs melting into the crushed and crumbled brickwork.  
A heavy feeling, the same sense that drags Roy’s gaze to the horizon and the dregs of light disappearing over the grey sweep of clouds rolling in, he knows that whatever is happened, it’s something to do with Ed. Wherever the hell he is. Whatever the hell he’s doing.

“Boss!”

Havoc and Breda are a welcome distraction. They pick their way over the rubble, pale-faced and colour draining further from their faces the closer they get to Roy, and the centre of the blast zone. In places, the dust is clumped together with sticky darkness. In places, waxy limp limbs poke out from under collapsed stone and rock like sickening plants reaching endlessly up out of a nightmare soil.

“Fuck,” says Havoc, softly. Roy seconds that sentiment.

“The King has put me in charge of the clean-up effort,” he tells them unceremoniously, and Breda raises a dubious eyebrow.

“But-- _you_? Why? I mean-- no offence, sir, just…,”

Roy cracks a bitter grin. “I know. I suspect it’s because he’d like me here, out of the way, rather than...not.”

“Hey,” says Havoc, “Where’s that mage you had with you earlier?”

“Excellent question,” says Roy, and-- miracle of miracles-- he manages to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Let me know if you find out the answer. Now-- we need to survey the entire area. Breda, you take that group of guards and start mapping the blast radius…”

 

Even as he steps into the shoes the king has given him, giving orders and staying _exactly_ where he’s supposed to be-- a loyal dog to a fault _\--_ part of him is yanking on the chain, insistent: what is he _doing?_ In his head, an alternate him is sketching out a parallel storyline: here, he breaks away from the scene, he scours the town high and low; he meets up with Maddie to glean what information he can; he seek out Maes-- who has also vanished into thin air and it’s all Roy can do not to go careening off down the street kicking open doors until he finds _something--_

“Roy,” says Riza, quietly. She puts her hand on his shoulder. Grounding. Anchoring. Roy meets her sharp, steady eyes, nods.

She takes her hand off his shoulder, and adjusts her grip on her shovel. “Start here,” she commands, and the group of low-ranking guards jump to immediately, levering rubble and fallen beams of subtly glowing metal out of the way.

Wait.

“Glowing,” says Roy, staring at the deep bronze beams rolled to one side. His fingertips itch, incessant. Riza looks at him.

“Do you see something?” she asks, and he frowns, because-- does he? Or is it just the light?

Almost involuntarily he’s crouching down, tracing pale gold-wrapped fingers over the warm metal. Invisible sparks rise and meet his touch. _Glowing_.

“This metal,” he says, looking up, “If you find any more of these, bring them to me.”

Riza nods, voice ringing out as she directs the men.

Slowly, his collection builds up: fallen support beams, it turns out, that would've been curved over the underpass ceiling to hold it in place: they all seem to shiver with energy like a held breath at Roy’s touch, and sure enough… sure enough…

“Magical arrays,” he says, running a hand carefully around the edge of the broken circle. Something tightens within him, hot and angry, like a vice. Riza crouches down next to him, eyes flickering over the inscribed lines, and the next second she’s gone, and Havoc is jogging over, windswept and smudged with ash.

 

“Hawkeye sent me,” he says, sinking to squat next to Roy. “What’s up, boss?”

Roy taps the metal. “Tell me what you think of that.”

For a moment, Havoc looks at it blankly, rolled cigarette, as always, held loose in the corner of his mouth. Then his eyes widen. Recognition blooms.

“A transmutation circle,” he says. “Looks like… an explosive reaction-- then the culprit is a sorcerer? For sure?”

“For sure,” Roy echoes grimly, and glances at Havoc’s conflicted expression. He raises his eyebrows. “It wasn’t him.” Ed wouldn’t; would _never--_ Roy knows this. And besides, an array as complicated and powerful as this takes specialisation. He’d suspected already that the culprit is an explosives specialist, but now they know for sure.

Havoc swallows, nods.

“I trust you, sir,” he says. Somehow, this isn’t as reassuring as Roy wishes it was.

 

He stands, dusting off his hands. Ten paces away, Riza is helping pull an unresponsive body from the hole they’ve made in the rubble. Anger curls hotly in him, licking its way through his lungs and up his throat. Restlessness curls through him. Surely, _surely_ there’s something he could be doing that’s more than-- _this_.

 

Roy turns to Havoc. “Show that to the King,” he says, then thinks that perhaps the chances of the king himself granting Havoc an audience are slim, and adds for good measure, “Or whoever answers to him. Not Archer. Keep him away from this.”

Havoc nods, scrambling up. His knees are stained pale with dust. “No Archer, got it,” he says. “Uh, sir, where are you--?”

“I’ll be back later,” Roy calls to him, already ten paces away. He flips up his collar against the wind-- suddenly, the air is twenty times more frigid and the clouds flirting with the city borders are darkly expansive. Heat flushes his fingertips: every magic-user knows that stormy weather is the best weather for casting.  It doesn’t take much brainpower for Roy to draw the connection between the sudden increase in attacks and the recent bad weather.

The air hums vividly with sustained energy, latent power ripe for channeling; urgency pounds through Roy’s blood in time with his own footsteps, sharp and staccato against the cobbles.

He thinks about the _closed indefinitely_ sign hanging on his door; he thinks about the scrolls and spellwork in his study; he thinks about Nina’s bright face as she chatters about her latest magic lessons; he thinks about Gracia rolling her eyes good-naturedly at her husband’s antics, setting a steaming dish of fresh-baked apple pie easily on the table, swatting at Maes’ hands as he reaches eagerly for the first slice.

Storm weather. The metal gauntlet. Everything is heightened, and Roy doesn’t know how much of the emotion running through him like the high-strung banners flapping in the wind over the city is a product of the brewing magic or a product of himself.

 

He _does_ know that his first order of business is to figure out what the _fuck_ is going on. He’ll find Maddie; he’ll find Maes.

And then he’ll _find Ed_ . The mage knows a lot more than he’s been letting on about all this, and Roy is _done_ being kept in the dark.

The plates etched with the king’s insignia clink softly as, deep in his pockets, Roy closes his hands into fists.

  


* * *

 

 

At the edge of the city, there is a cemetery. At the edge of the cemetery, there is a fountain. And at the edge of the fountain, there is a mage.

 

Ed heaves himself up, one hand on the lip of the fountain to keep from slipping in-- _again_ , fucking god _damn_ it-- and just barely manages to roll out of the way as the stone he’s leaning on buckles and explodes, raining shards down to smash over the ground and spraying water everywhere. Where the fuck are his knives?

He hits the ground, tumbles, and barely manages to regain his footing on the slippery swathe of mud, shot through with flecks of pulped grass. Water spills sluggishly from the broken fountain, but more importantly-- he sees the silvery gleaming flat blade of one of his knives poking out through the muck, cleaned off by the flood: he does not hesitate.

Kimblee appears out of the darkness, taking his time with his cocky stroll; recognisable by his cruel laugh and shitty pretentious coat; but Ed’s not even listening. Fuck _that_.

He dives, scooping up the knife and missing another explosion where he’d stood, mud and grit spraying up and outwards, the blast lending him concussive momentum as he flies through the freezing dark air.  
He gets one hand beneath him, the other wrapped around the knife, and from there he can push off of the ground, kicking up and over to land in a skid of mud and rain and torn-up flowerbeds--

If he hesitates now, it’s all over.

He moves with the heat of his blood, barely sliding to a stop in the cold dark mud before he’s darting forwards; Kimblee is a cold shiver of silver haze in the shadows, half-masked but Ed’s always had something of a gift for seeing through other people’s bullshit--

 

The knife connects. Kimblee says something, hot and vicious; a curse maybe; whatever it is is ripped away on in wind and rain.

Magic flares between them and Ed yanks out the knife that had struck Kimblee in the side, sunk deep: blood pours. Kimblee’s crazed eyes meet his in the dark, still smiling wide with a too-full mouth of teeth.  
Crackling lines of light lance across the space towards him and Ed sweeps Kimblee’s feet out from under him even as the air fucking _vibrates_ with clenched energy; molecules and invisible flashes of chemicals clash-- tense-- and tear themselves apart.

 

He came here, followed the ribboned trails of energy through the entire fucking city; it's been _days_ but Ed’s no stranger to going without sleep-- he came here to fight. He came here to _win_ , but now that it’s happening, now that shit is _real_ , he doesn’t know--

Don’t fucking _think_ about that. Just move.

Something sears the side of his face as he drops to the ground. He doesn’t have time to think anything except _fuck!_ before the space where his head had been is alight with vivid fire and sparks are raining down around him. Briefly, Ed feels Kimblee stumble away, ripples of magic stirring around his form as the shadows part.  
_Bastard._ He drags himself up, shakes the ringing out of his ears, or tries to; it’s less than successful but fuck it, right?

He takes a breath, clenches his fists, and sprints into the night after Kimblee’s fading form.

  


* * *

 

 

The bar is as alive as usual when Roy arrives, charcoal cape turned darker by the rain. It’s still fairly early in the evening, but the room is bustling, music just loud enough to be heard over the noise without being deafening. From the outside, it looks like any bar scene in any city in the country. Look closer, and you see the gaunt looks on faces, the serious tone of conversation as you pass between tables; heads are bent together over glasses but instead of soft words of seduction, the topic of conversation, as of late, is rather darker.

Maddie sees him from across the room and dances over, smiling brightly as she takes his arm and leads him through the back. She keeps the pretence perfectly until they’re through the door, her flirtatious mask as natural as any of Roy’s. You learn a lot about secrets, growing up here.

“I got your message,” she says when the door is locked behind them. She sweeps a stray curl out of her eyes and cracks a sweet smile. “Your man is _cute_ ! Kain, right? You can send _him_ again.”

Roy has to smile at that, even as he rolls his eyes. “Don’t go corrupting my people,” he says. “He’s a good man.”

“I can tell,” she says seriously, this time without the innuendo. She shakes her head. “Anyway. I got what you needed, but it’ll cost you! The king does _not_ want his secret mage files gettin’ out, I’ll tell you that.”

One of the many taut strings of tension holding Roy and on edge melts into oblivion. Thank the _stars_.

“You got it?” he asks, leaning forward, and she nods at him. Her eyes are young and bright, but there is a grave quality to them that betrays her experience. Maddie is a professional, and it shows.

“I did,” she says, reaching into a hidden pocket to extract a folded piece of paper. She holds it up, where it catches the candlelight, paper turned creamy gold.

Roy keeps his face expressionless, but his words are sincere. “Thank you,” he says, “I know this wasn’t easy.”

She tosses her hair. “You’re damn right,” she says. “I’m charging you double for this. Talk about fatal risk! Honestly, Roy,” she holds his gaze, then, playfulness abruptly gone. “Be careful. And let me know when the revolution is starting, yeah? I wanna get in on that.”

Roy nods. “I will,” he says. No use pretending now, he supposes. _The revolution_. “You might have to wait a while, though,” he tells her.

She shrugs, handing him the paper. “Been waiting years already,” she says. “The whole city has. But when the time’s right… well. Good luck.”

“Who needs luck,” says Roy, giving her his best rakish grin, “when I’ve got you?”

Maddie rolls her eyes at him, but she links her arm through his as they exit back through the door, paper tucked safely in Roy’s most secure pocket. “Yeah, you better believe it,” she says, and squeezes his arm one last time before he goes, ducking back through the door and into the rain.

 

* * *

 

 

The last time Ed and Kimblee has fought, there hadn’t been, like, a _definitive_ winner. But if an impartial judge had to make a decision, they’d probably say something like _well, Kimblee fled like a child mostly unscathed while Ed was left in a heap on the floor with a goddamn metal pipe stuck through his stomach, so--_

 

Well. He’d gotten his own shots in, Ed thinks, smiling grimly into the shadows; he’d left his damn mark.

This time it would be different. If anyone was gonna be left crumpled and bleeding out at the bottom of a well, it sure as _fuck_ wasn’t gonna be Ed.

 Once, Ed had hated, _hated_ the idea of killing. He would have been revolted at the thought of leaving someone for dead, even Kimblee; he’s be disgusted at himself for considering sliding the knife in fatal and leaving it there--

Once.

Now, he’s still fucking disgusted with himself, of course, but that doesn’t mean he won’t go through with it when he gets his hands on the fucker.

 Last time he’d been new to the game, young and green and naive as hell, and so idealistic it makes him sick to remember it. He’d bought into the _make the world brighter_ bullshit, then. He’d really, really _tried_.

 Night has fallen fully now, thunder closer and the air staticky with suppressed power. Storm season. Perfect for mages. Ed feels full to the brim with magic, and he doesn’t doubt that Kimblee, that every other mage in the city, is the same.

 The small spill of tumbledown houses and rickety streets bordering the city graveyard remind him, with a sick ongoing sense of loss and longing, of home. Resembool, rolling hills and patched up windows and counting out pennies one by one for lunch money.

 He shakes himself, follows the thread of dull silver to an alleyway, dingy and slimy and smelling like dead things and shit.  
Fitting, probably.

 He finds Kimblee waiting for him in the darkness, flexing his hands like a fucking creep and _waiting_.

Luckily, Ed’s ready for him, too.The magic rises to his touch like a breath, the perfect full well of power rising and falling at his behest; magic is an _exchange_ ; magic is a _bargain_. The mage works alongside the energy like two halves of a flipped coin, spinning and blurring together in the air until the two faces are indistinguishable from each other.

The tiled ground buckles, shakes under Kimblee and he staggers, balance failing him. Ed pulls stone and earth out of the ground, flying like missiles towards the target; Kimblee snarls as he is forced to direct his attention towards the projectiles, blasting away from himself with concentrated energy. Ed would admire his aim if he didn’t hate the guy so fucking much.

As it is, he takes advantage of Kimblee’s distraction to dart in close; _end this_ , he thinks, _end this quickly_.

His knife shines in the dark. Kimblee sees him coming, and doesn’t have time to do anything but smile before Ed collides with him, driving his metal shoulder into Kimblee’s chest and flipping him forwards, over Ed’s body, and slamming him into the broken ground.  
He sets his knife against Kimblee’s throat, flicks a hand and the stone rises up, closes over Kimblee’s sparking hands and trapping them there as the cemented into the floor.

“How d'you like _that_ , fucker?” Ed hisses, up close, and a gratifying flicker of anger passes over Kimblee’s face before he’s grinning again, grinning madly like he’ll never stop.

“Oh, I like it a lot,” Kimblee whispers, a disgusting parody of seduction, and Ed’s lip curls in revulsion.

Then the ground buckles yet again, and Kimblee tears his hands-- trailing smoke and flecks of blood-- free.

It is _on._

  
***

 

The moon filters pale light intermittently,  in scattered segments through dwindling gaps in the heavy, roiling storm clouds overhead. The alleyway is shuttered, darker than the shining rain-washed streets. It would make it hard to see if it weren’t for the energy, bright and wreathed with danger, that cuts through the shadows like a knife.

Speaking of.

Crammed in against the wall, Kimblee wrenches on his fistful of Ed’s hair, magic sparking, and Ed twists the knife deeper, hot blood spilling slick over his hands.

The silver plummets. Kimblee coughs, teeth shining scarlet even in the dark. He’s grinning.

“You think,” he gasps out, “You can _kill_ me? You don’t have it in you.”

“Says the one with my _knife_ in his fucking guts,” Ed spits out. His own voice is ugly, twisted up to his ears. The blood is warm, warm, getting colder in the freezing air.

Kimblee laughs. It’s a horrible sound. He shakes his head.

“So young,” he croons, making as if to lean up, fingers pawing at Ed’s hair and he jerks his head away, revulsion blooming white hot in his chest.

“Get the _fuck_ off me, asshole,” he says, and twists the knife savagely as he pulls it out. Kimblee makes a sharp monosyllabic noise of pain, and Ed hates himself, _hates_ himself for the sadistic way he thinks, _Good._

Kimblee is still breathing. For all the blood, his chest rises and falls evenly. Ed is still trapping his legs beneath him. Kimblee smiles.

“So _naive_ ,” he says, snakelike.

“What the fuck are you talking about,” says Ed, and holds up the knife, eyes narrowing. “Whatever bullshit you’re pulling to keep yourself alive, it’ll catch up  to you. But in the meantime, I’m guessing you can still feel _pain.”_

 

Kimblee’s laugh is delighted and horrific. He raises a hand, wags his finger mockingly. “Bloodthirsty,” he breathes, sickeningly amused, and grins again. “Not as clever as you think you are.”  
Kimblee shifts his legs, and his smile tips lecherously. Ed doesn’t think, doesn’t hesitate; he swings, snapping Kimblee’s head to the side with his metal fist. Blood drips from his knuckles. Cheek pressed to the concrete, Kimblee whistles, low.

“Feisty,” he says. Ed makes to punch him again, to pound the fucker’s face in if he has to; but something--

Wait.

The silver glow of magic around Kimblee had dimmed when Ed had stabbed him, the light flickering and dying along with what should’ve been Kimblee's last fucking breath--

But now, minutes later, blood pooling around him like water, the glow is returning. His magic is flowing back into him, breaking-- every fucking rule, every fucking law that Ed has tried so fucking hard to bend--

“What the _fuck,”_ Ed says, because it’s dawning on him now and his chest _aches_ with it.

Beneath him, Kimblee starts to laugh.

 

And he’s got a point-- for a supposed fucking genius, it’s taken Ed way too fucking long to realise--

 

“Where is it,” he says, slamming Kimblee’s head into the concrete, “Where the _fuck_ it is?”

Kimblee cries out, guttural laugh cut short, coughs.

“I’m afraid I don’t--,” he starts, and Ed heaves him up, vision a red blur, and hits him again. And again.And again, one hand pinning Kimblee against the alley wall, the other driving full force into his face.

“ _Where is it,”_ he says, and his voice doesn’t sound like it belongs to him. Has he ever sounded like that, fucked up and vicious and rotten?

Kimblee grins at him, spits out a tooth.

“Not telling,” he says.

Ed reaches for the knife.

 

And behind him, a veritable world away, across the rickety houses that remind him of home and Al and everything safe; towards the edge of the city--  
There is a light.

 A flare. Silver as silver; true and shining and so close it fills his lungs til he’s breathing in energy; the sky is lit up with sparks; a beacon of pure endless magic; and _Ed knows what this is--_  
Kimblee lets out a whoop, triumphant and delirious with delight.  
The magic is coming from the cemetery.

Icy and familiar as his brother’s face. As familiar as his own reflection. Ed had thought he’d never have to see this again.

 “Necromancy,” he says, staring blankly at Kimblee, who just laughs madly and smiles at the sky.

“This is a _distraction,_ ” Ed says, something electrical filling up his veins.

“Only if you want it to be,” says Kimblee, leering at him. Something red and shiny glints behind his teeth and his lips quick knowingly. Indecision grips Ed like a vice; he grabs Kimblee by the throat and slams him back into the wall, feverish, but the man has already gulped down the Stone with a lick of his lips.

“Fucking-- give it to me!” says Ed, punching him again; bones crack. Kimblee _moves,_ nimble, and throws Ed off balance, sends him sprawling, and then Kimblee is uprights again, hands splayed like the worst welcome in the fucking universe, dark energy crackling between them.

A shimmer and a flash, and his wounds close. His jaw rights itself. His broken teeth are whole and pearly white again.

“You’ll have to try and take it from me, little mage,” says Kimblee, taunting.

Ed grips his knife, and Al’s face flashes behind his eyes. Al, smiling. Al, laughing. They were happy, once. They could be happy again.

But his eyes are reproachful in Edms mind. _Brother,_ he says, _what are you doing? Look at you. Mom wouldn't want this._ I _don’t want this._

Al, I’m sorry. Al, I-- I don’t know what to do.

In his head, Ed is begging. Pleading, the way he’d pleaded with the faceless _thing_ at the Gate; in his head Al is looking at him calmly, but in real life Al is a kid in a fucking endless sleep he cannot wake from, all because of _Ed_ abd stupid, _stupid_ fucking wish to bring mom back--

 

Necromancy. The most taboo of all forbidden magicks. Necromancy. Raising the dead.

And the light is flaring silver and terrible behind him, and the people of this city are dying, and someone is trying to-- briefly, the figures run through Ed’s mind. A beacon this big can’t be masked. A beacon _this big,_ of necromantic power, coming from the direction of the fucking _graveyard_ \--

The magical fallout alone will mean earthquakes, natural disasters; the imbalance caused by the backlash of such a huge fucking energy source… Even without factoring in whatever the _fuck_ the nage is doing with those bodies, this means destruction of the highest level. The entire city, almost certainly. The country?

Ed swallows, hard.

Kimblee spits into his palm nonchalantly and starts flipping the stone between his fingers.

Ed grits his teeth. There’s never enough fucking _time_ …

 

The cemetery. The philosopher’s stone.

 

The city, or his little brother?

  


* * *

 

 

In the end, it’s not even that much of a choice. Kimblee, the _asshole_ , cut and run as soon as Ed’s indecision had shown: he’d turned around to-- stab the fucker again or _something_ , and Kimblee had been little more than a hazy silver shape in the distance, feet soundless over the stone.

So. He’s here. Central City Cemetery. And he’s not alone, either.

 

Maes Hughes stands over a huge circle, laid out across the graveyard, encircling at least thirty dark gray tombstones. The lines of the circle, carved deep into the earth-- and Ed had _been_ here; he’d fucking _just_ been here; how long had this taken?-- are glowing with the sustained, humming kind of energy that precedes a spell of epic fucking proportions.

Hughes sees him from where he stands on the other side of the circle, at the top of the hill where the ground slopes gradually upward so the whole fucking city is laid out before him. His face lights up. He smiles.

“Ed!” he cries, as if they’ve spotted each other across a square, in a market; as if this is as normal as you fuckin’ please and the markings etched into the damp soil where Ed is standing aren’t necromantic sigils. “I was hoping you’d turn up!”

Ed draws his knife, sharp blade imbued with strengthening spells so it glows in his hand as if made from distilled moonlight.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he says, voice carried on the wind, and he’s running back through it in his head: everything he’s seen, the strange _something_ about the man’s magic that he’d sensed a millenium ago in Roy’s kitchen...

What he doesn’t understand, really doesn’t fucking _get_ is the fact that Roy’s been, like, _best friends_ with this guy for years. It seems unthinkable to him that Roy wouldn’t _notice_ if his best friend was secretly a fucking necromancer planning to-- what? Raise an army of dead soldiers and civilans? Take over the city in some bullshit zombie apocolypse-type ploy?

Even from this distance, he can see Hughes’ smile turn cruel. It’s ugly and jarring, that expression on his bespectacled face. Doesn’t this guy have a wife and kid? What the fuck is going _on_?

“You’ll have to come closer and ask me that, little mage,” Hughes says.

  
  


Later, Ed is raising his head as blood drips from his nose. It makes a sick, crimson puddle, swirling into the mud on the ground below him. His knife is in Hughes’ hand, now. Numbly, he remembers similar bloody puddles catching the moonlight in that fucking alleyway, and he thinks, _equivalent exchange._

His reason for looking up, for raising his face-- bruised and aching from a lucky hit-- to peer across the circle:

Roy, sharply dressed in that fucking military gig. He cuts a striking figure, backlit like that by arcing, crackling electric blue light. His voice is sharp, rising with the wind.

“Maes?” he says, voice suddenly so lost and laced with unconcealable shock, and Ed grits his teeth, fingers sinking into the mud as he drags himself onto his elbows. The man above him, eyes obscured by the light flashing across his glasses, laughs cruelly.

“Roy!” he says, delighted, and Ed watches as the colour drains from Roy’s face across the brightness. _Come on, come on,_ Ed thinks, sucking in a deep breath as he struggles to his knees. The metal clamped around his wrists glows bright, bright gold and his strength flags, sputters like a guttering flame. “Roy-- you found me. I knew you would.”

“What are you talking about?” Roy asks, and his eyes find Ed then, widening. “Maes, what are you _doing_?”

Maes Hughes spreads his hands wide, and the circle flares even brighter. Around them the mud begins to recede, as though sluiced away by a torrent of water. “I’m trying to save the city,” he says, sincere. He points at Ed, flecked with mud on his knees, and Ed spits at him. The great weight in his throat is constricting his voice; air rasps down his windpipe, and he might not be able to denounce this fucker aloud but he can sure as _fuck_ find another way.

Maes shakes his head, the wind whipping up around them tousling his hair.

“Roy, I know this is hard to believe, but this mage has been polluting the city’s magic for _months_ ,” he says. Roy stares at him, eyes like chips of obsidian. Ed glares. _He’s fucking lying!_ He attempts to send telepathically. _Fucking obviously! Come_ on _Roy if you believe this fucker I swear I’ll fucking punch you--_

 

But then, it’s not as if Ed’s done much to earn Roy’s fucking trust, is it? These past few days of avoiding questions and tearing off at odd moments without warning; never telling Roy anything ‘cause that’s what seven years of paranoia’ll do to a guy; trust issues and a mild case of neurosis and _god damn it_ , why didn’t he just _say something_ \--

 

“He’s been using you,” says Maes. Ed strives for eye contact with Roy, holds his dark gaze and with every fucking atom of his being tries to communicate with his expression that this _isn’t fucking true_.

“He wanted access to your research,” says Maes, and oh, fucking _hell_ ; Roy caught him snooping that one time, didn’t he? _Fuck_.

Ed shakes his head wildly. Across the array, Roy doesn’t react.

“He drew this circle earlier today,” says Maes and even _Ed_ jerks his head to stare at him for that, because _what the fuck_? “He’s trying to raise an-- undead army, or something; I don’t know much about necromancy--,”

Yeah, no fucking shit, Ed thinks. Anyone who knew anything about necromancy wouldn’t--

“But he does. I know who he is. Edward Elric. Did he tell you anything about his past?”

 

Ed freezes.

Roy shakes his head, slowly.

Despite the rushing wind and rising hum of magic, everything, all of a sudden, seems utterly, utterly silent.

 Maes makes an apologetic face, brows drawing together. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I know-- I know you had feelings for him, Roy. But-- you don’t _know_ him.”

“And you do?” asks Roy.

Maes pulls a folder out of his coat. “Yes.”

Roy glances at Ed, covered in mud and Kimblee’s blood; a wreck, every picture of a fucking _villain_.

“Tell me.”

The folder is flipped open. Ed doesn’t need to look to know what’s written there in tight, cramped script, but he does anyway, can’t stop himself, can’t tear his eyes away from the words swimming on the page above him.

“His mother died,” says Maes, “and he tried to bring her back. He nearly killed his little brother while he was at it-- his _ten year old_ little brother, Roy.”

 The cold stone of the basement, the acrid smell of sulphur. The sting of the kitchen knife on the pad of his finger. Al’s bright grin. _“We’re gonna see mom again, right, brother?” “Yeah, Al. We’re gonna see her smile again!”_

 Ed’s barely on his feet, moving on instinct to just fucking make it _stop_ when Maes flicks a finger and the pressure around Ed’s throat has suddenly increased by _ten-fucking-fold_ ; blinding pain and red blurred vision; his fingers claw at his neck as he drops again, not even registering the way his knees hit the ground hard but he can’t-- he can’t--

 In a last-ditch effort, one of many in the past however long he’s been getting his ass kicked, he reaches for the magic, and the magic responds.

Greedy, transcendent; the iron cuffs around his wrists crumble into dark powder, borne away in the turbulent air.

Over the span of the swirling lines etched deep into the earth, Roy raises his hand, eyes set dark.

Ed sucks in a deep, full lungful of air.

 

“You,” says Roy across the circle, his voice terrible, “are not Maes Hughes.”

The blue light encompassing the circle dips, ebbs.

Ed sweeps his leg into the backs of not-Maes’ legs, and knocks the fucker to the ground. His head strikes the hard frost-packed earth with a _thud_ , and Roy snaps his fingers.

Prone, with no way to dive out of the arcing path of the flame, the effect is instantaneous and awful. The air crackles with searing heat as Not-Hughes is overwhelmed in fire; and _fuck,_ the fucking _smell_ \-- Ed’s  vision fills with flamelight fringed in the silver glow of magic, and the circle sputters…

 

Roy’s steps, quick over the wet earth.

“Ed,” he says, dark eyes with the fire dancing deep inside; there’s a breathless quality to his voice, barely there like he’s trying his best to hide it.

“Yo,” says Ed, voice only slightly hoarse. An improvement; he’ll take it. He looks up at Roy, eyes just slightly narrowed, the horrorshow behind him snuffed out as Roy raises his hand, clenching his fingers into a fist. Ed’s eyes narrow further. “Nice glove, Mustang.”

Roy looks down at the silvery gauntlet as though he’d forgotten it was there. Ed thinks about the knife on the smouldering corpse behind him, wonders if it’s melted or if the magical wards will have held. Wonders if he’d even be able to use it, if he had to.

“A gift,” says Roy, and his voice is dry, bitter: Ed raises an eyebrow.

“The king bought your loyalty with a _magic glove_?” he asks, edging on disbelief.

“He wishes,” says Roy, shaking his head, and holy fucking hellfire, are they finally over this dumbass awkward multilayered communication deal? “I’m supposed to be investigating the underpass collapse currently, but I decided the city would benefit more if I left Riza in charge.”

Thank fuck; that’s a yes.

“And what, you came up here by _chance_?” Ed says. Roy shakes his head.

“The gauntlet,” he says, raising it slightly. Of course. “It heightens--,”

“Heightens your magical perception; yeah, fine. But what the fuck-- let me say that again because I’m not fucking sure you grasp how dead fucking serious I am-- what in the _fuck_ is up with _that_ display?” Ed indicates the charred, smoking, acrid ex-person behind him. Something angry and unjustified rises in him, and it’s too bad that he doesn’t have the fucking energy to force it back down.

Roy’s expression shutters. “It’s not Maes,” he says, resolute.

“Well, _duh_ ,” says Ed, even though it’s only now that it’s starting to become clear. “I coulda told you that. Transformation magic.”

Roy raises an eyebrow. Ed squints intently at the corner of his mouth: if the fucker starts smirking, Ed doesn’t give a fuck whose side he’s on; he’s gonna swing.

“Alright,” says Roy, “I-- overreacted. I’m sorry. I'm sorry.”

And he means it. There’s a haunted horror story in his pale face, and his eyes keep straying behind Ed to look at the remains of what he did. Ed remembers him saying he served in the military. He tries not to wonder what kind of shit the king put him through there, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess.

He shrugs a little, moving just a step to the left to block Roy’s view, and tugs his cloak back in place. It’s a fucking miracle it’s stayed on through all of this, honestly.

“Eh,” he says. “The guy was a dick. Probably a friend of...someone I know.”

“Someone you’ve just come from a fight with?” asks Roy, looking pointedly down at Ed, and… right. The blood. He looks away, storm winds tossing his hair back. It’s cool against his face, a relief.

 

Roy touches his shoulder lightly, eyes tracking and widening just barely, and Ed remembers that the blood is streaked over-- _everything_ ; his gloved hands are fucking covered and his first thought is how mad Winry’s gonna be if it turns out it’s gotten in his fucking arm...

“It’s not mine,” he says. “Well. Not all of it but, like-- most.”

“Who’s is it?” Roy asks. They’re standing in a wide open cemetery, but it feels intimate, enclosed.

Ed cuts his eyes away, stares hard at the polished buttons on Roy’s cape coat.

“His name is Kimblee,” he says, and then he can’t say anything more. His throat, newly liberated, feels scrubbed raw.

“The mage,” says Roy, eyes serious. “Yes, I’ve read his file. He came here for you?”

“Somethin’ like that,” says Ed. “You’ve read his _file_?”

Roy pulls a piece of paper from his pocket, holds it out in offerance. Ed takes it. In a neat, loopy handwriting is a cipher. It takes Ed a second to put together, and then he’s skimming through the page; it’s excerpts copied from a file, alright; _Kimblee’s_ file. It’s dated two months ago. It details… everything. Shit Ed didn’t even know.  A military record, dishonourable discharge, secret fucking service and loyalty to the king. And in a note at the bottom, it says, _this is from the king’s priv. collection. you owe me. maddie_

 

The wind ruffles the paper in his hand.

Roy says, “I asked Maddie to look into mages that specialised in explosives. There were a few others, but they’re all dead.”

Leaving Kimblee alone to pioneer the noble fucking art of mass murder. And Ed let him go free. Stupid. _Stupid, stupid, unthinking._

 

“...Shit,” he says at last, to the air. Roy nods his agreement. Ed noticed for the first time, by the silver glow emanating from his shoulders, the tired shadows under his eyes, the chalky dust smudged on his cheekbone. He resists the urge to reach up and wipe it off.

“We should get rid of this,” he adds, clearing his throat and handing the paper back to Roy, who snaps his fingers like an asshole and burns it to cinders, with just a hint of his usual smug bastard showmanship. The look in his eyes says he’s about to ask a question, and Ed has too many secrets to deal with it. He’s so fucking tired of lying. He’s so fucking tired of lying _to Roy._

_Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me what happened, don’t ask me what I did._

“Where is he now?” says Roy.

Ed’s face twists, but relief comes first. “Fucker ran. I don’t know. I couldn’t-- he has. Fuck.”

It’s as if everything that’s happened so far; every tiny shitty insignificant thing that’s happened thus far has culminated into this one fuckin’ moment. Ed feels breathless, dizzy. He takes a breath. Roy waits, patient despite the spitting rain and the crumpled body behind them and the circle of magic and shadow still gouged into the cemetery mud.

Ed swallows hard.

“There’s this thing,” he says. “You’ve heard of it; every fuckin’ mage alive has heard of it. The philosopher’s stone.”

 

The thing is, as soon as he gets those words out there’s this unparalleled sense of pure _relief_ . It’s-- cathartic, in so many ways; he watches Roy’s eyes and he waits for the light of greed to spark within them and when it doesn’t, when Roy just nods, slowly, and the gears start whirring and Ed can see the moment he starts planning, as he always is, how they’re going to deal with this and how they’re going to fight it; it’s endless relief. And Ed’s said it, and the world hasn’t ended yet, and he’s been carrying this around inside him for _so fucking long._

“That’s what you came here to find,” says Roy. It’s not a question, but Ed answers him anyway.

“Yeah.” He laughs shortly. It’s not humourous. “Yeah, I-- fucking did. I’ve been searching for _years,_ Roy. And I found it, he’s got it, and it makes him-- I fucking stabbed that asshole and he’s _fine,_ y’know?”

“Healing powers?” asks Roy, leaning closer almost unconsciously, and Ed shakes his head.

“It’s more than that. It...negates the need for equivalence, for energy calculations; all of it. Like, he should’ve been _dead_ but it’s like it just… erased what happened. And he’s _fine_.”

Roy exhales. He looks around, at the circle still humming with restrained power, the mud and blood splattered over the tombstones. Ed’s not squeamish about death and it’s laughable to imagine himself buying into, like, the _afterlife_ or whatever, but even he can see this shit is disrespectful to the highest level.

“So,” says Roy, in that _It’s okay because I have a plan and even if I don’t have a plan right now I will soon_ voice of his, which kind of pisses Ed off but even that’s a welcome experience because it means shit’s back normal with them, “We deal with this circle, and then we deal with Kimblee.”

Ed shrugs, wipes some of the blood off his face. “Sure,” he says. “Let’s fuckin’ do this thing.”

 

The body behind them is growing cold, both in the literal sense and the sense that only mages see; the silver lines are dimming, the aura fading. It’s not unlike the dimming of a flame, or the way a flower shrinks and wilts as it dies. Roy’s eyes find it, self-loathing warring with anger. Ed punches him lightly in the shoulder. Solidarity, or whatever.

“The question remains, however,” Roy says with quiet strength, and-- hell, Ed had been too caught up in trying not to get killed to notice before but he looks _damn_ good in that fancy military getup, all sharp angles and smooth lines. “If that’s not Maes-- and it isn’t-- then who the hell _is_ it?”

 

Ed considers the corpse, blackened and grisly. He opens his mouth to say something, when--

The charred husk sparks.

Energy spikes, wild, and red light pours in crackling strings from the body; Ed reacts instinctively and pulls Roy backwards as the corpse jerks, staccato, and… sits up.

Grins, a nightmare horror in a charcoal face.

“I was waiting for you to say that,” says the thing, and the red lines crackle over the ruined skin, and the burned flesh melts into something smooth and unblemished. And also something resembling a completely _different_ from Maes Hughes.

Ed reaches for his knife, and realises too late he doesn’t have it.

Beside him, Roy is rigid as a statue. The body raises its hands as if inspecting them, and flips to its feet, too fast to be human. They run a hand through long black hair and blink bright eyes, snakelike.

“Hey,” they say, flipping Ed’s knife between their fingers-- _why_ do these fuckers keep _doing_ that? “Nice to meetcha. I’m Envy, and I’m gonna kill you both.”

 

With a zero hesitation, Roy flicks his gauntlet-covered hand and flames engulf them.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3c
> 
> please dont hate me


End file.
